I wrote White Flag when I was in the midst of a love I couldn’t comprehend. The tracks in the EP are in chronological order of when they were written, and the first three were all written within a few days of each other. When listening to White Flag in order, it’s kind of like experiencing the emotions and having the realizations at the same time I am. I recorded and produced this EP all by myself, and it was a very isolating experience. But that isolation of the recording process really mirrored the isolation I felt when I was in this particular relationship. This project wasn’t really made for anyone else’s ears other than my own, but the process of putting it out into the world meant it was no longer just sitting in my head for me to deal with alone. These songs were how I processed and dealt with what I was going through. It’s not the prettiest, it doesn’t sound perfect—I recorded the main vocals and guitar at the same time, so the main melody and guitar part in each song are in just one take. It felt more authentic to me that way.

The first song, “Palm of Your Hand” was the first song I wrote after a period of writer's block that lasted for about three months. This song is really important to me because the lyrics don’t try to be perfect—if this were a different project I honestly would’ve changed a lot of the lines. The first line of the song lays it all out, “I can’t list the reasons why I love you, but I do.” The rest of the song follows suit in its bluntness, and that’s why I love it so much. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve written because it’s not trying to be anything it’s not. That sentiment really set the tone for the rest of the project—it inspired the very stripped down acoustic production and the freedom I gave myself with the songwriting to just use the words to process what I was going through. 

I wrote the second song, “Masochist,” once the breakup happened. The song reflects back on the relationship and the bad patterns I could see I had fallen into while I was in it. But the song is also about this fear of not being able to let go or break those toxic patterns: “don’t know what we did to each other, but now I’m addicted to the pain of loving you.”

The third song, “White Flag,” is what I chose to be the title of the project. It gave me the lyric that I felt encapsulated the idea of the project, “love is beautiful, but love is cruel.” I was so proud and happy that I had the capacity in myself to love someone so deeply, but man did it hurt. The song doesn’t have a chorus, it’s kind of this cascading of verses. It was the song where I just put all the words I was feeling out on the table. I needed to just leave it all there on the page so it could be out of my heart—the guilt I felt for ending the love, the desperate need I felt to undo what I had done, the disappointment I had in myself for letting it go on as long as it did, and the hope that despite it all, I wouldn’t be forgotten.

The last song, “Fill You Up - Demo” was a last minute addition to the project. I wrote this song in the studio when I was recording the rest of the White Flag project, a full six months after the rest of the songs were written. A wave of emotion came over me and I couldn’t record anymore, so I wrote “Fill You Up” instead. It’s about the frustration of feeling like I would never truly shake the heartbreak. With this song, I finally felt free.