The dichotomy of wanting to be loved but not seen: Abby Powledge's new single, ‘ruin me’
On August 1st, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter Abby Powledge released her latest single, ruin me. With this track, Abby delivers an agonising anthem of regret and loss born from guarding herself a little too much when it comes to love.
After surpassing 150k monthly listeners in January, Abby released her debut EP, if i’m honest for once. With this project, every track felt intrusively truthful, as though the lyrics were spun from listener’s own strings of thoughts, rubbing salt in undiscovered wounds. Such honesty has earned her a devoted community of fans whom Abby can trust with her secrets, and after 7 months, she’s welcoming them back for another taste of turmoil.
“Never change for anybody” is a comforting affirmation that many of us first hear from our parents - a reminder of the importance of individuality and identity - and ruin me is ultimately about embodying that mantra as a defence mechanism against an inevitable heartbreak.
The lyrics talk about resisting the change that a lover can bring to you, because you’re scared of losing yourself to them. Arguably, it’s easier to feed a false identity to others than to be forced to rewrite your true self after a heartbreak. With ruin me, Abby refuses to present herself as an open book, and instead overwrites her identity to tell an entirely different story.
The track opens: “You never really met me, truly met me, face to face / I think I've been alone so long I thought no shot that you would stay." These lines read like an apologetic letter to an ex, in which the facade is finally confessed. Despite the fact her lover never knew her, she thought he would stay, simply because she felt the universe could not withhold her from romance any longer: “And so I turned into a stranger just to cater to your taste / And I'm too stubborn of a woman to give in that easily.” There is an element of desperation here, shown through her will to change despite being stubborn to doing so. After being authentic yet alone for so long, changing seems like the only way to make somebody stay. But, ultimately, love is a flame of vulnerability and it’s honesty that keeps it burning. By changing, that honesty withers away and you lose touch of who you were before.
With the chorus, Abby sings, “Said my second-favourite songs, my second-favourite drinks / Wore the clothes I might outgrow, cause your cologne would always sting / Only showed you half my music, so I'd have some left to sing.” In a generation of oversharers, Abby has mastered the art of self preservation. By only naming her ‘second favourites’, she is giving just enough away to be convincing in her deception, but never enough to reveal herself entirely, and through creating an alternate version of herself, she is cleverly crafting a dispensable personality that heartbreak cannot ruin. However, the line, “Guess I thought by keeping to myself/ You couldn't ruin me” implies that she was wrong, and that no amount of pretences can protect a person from pain.
Then comes the second verse: “You never really met me, truly met me as I am / I’ve watchеd my friends go through the ringer with thеir awful taste in men.” Second hand heartbreak truly shatters your illusions of love and urges you to be careful when you enter a relationship. “I was made so independent / That I’d acted out of spite,” Abby confesses, a crucial line that demonstrates why such precautions were taken. It is then followed by the crux of this song, “I couldn’t have you change me drastically if you weren’t there for life.”
The chorus follows, but is reframed into an act of defence against love's destructive nature. This was not a choice of malice, but one made from a place of anxiety, in which she had to prioritise her own feelings above all else.
Next, the bridge offers a perspective shift, one in which Abby faces the consequences of her actions: “And I guess I’ve made it worse/Guess I called it way too early.” In the end, it seems that by building a barricade to heartbreak, she caused herself more of it. Her fear is not of love, it is of change, and eliminating the possibility of growth with a lover does not eliminate that fear, it only allows it to evolve into regret. “Guess I’m changing anyway/You could’ve salvaged something worthy/Guess I know now I won’t find someone/If inauthentically,” she sings.
With every day that we exist, we are becoming somebody new and such change is an inevitable part of being alive. Abby realises this now, when it is too late to rekindle the relationship she had, which teaches her the lesson that honesty is vital in order to fall in love. The final line of the bridge - “Guess I know now I feel guilty cause I just let you believe,” tells listeners that her biggest regret, above all else, is misleading her partner.
As the chorus plays for a final time and all instruments except an acoustic guitar fall away, this regret lingers. The sound becomes sombre and solitary, as through her inauthenticity, the singer has driven love away and is left with nobody but her sadness to comfort her.
A plea for authenticity for the sake of yourself and others, ruin me explores how the regret of lying to a person you love cuts deeper than the knife of heartbreak. Ask Abby, she’d know.
To stay tuned with what’s next for Abby Powledge, make sure to follow her on Instagram and stream the rest of her discography on Spotify. For those who need recommendations, our favourites songs are: the way that i am, ruin me and generations in the making.