Words By: Brianna Vacca

Old-soul singer + songwriter Maddy Wood is brimmed with elegance and cherried with grit. Influenced by legendary rock bands Led Zeppelin and Stevie Nicks, the Rhode Island native carefully handcrafts her truths from the pages of her songwriting notebook and gives them legs of their own. Wood is gifted in mingling countless sounds and influences to create her own little designated harmony, much like Phoebe Bridgers and Maggie Rogers, who are all unapologetically sugar, spice, and everything nice. But don’t confine the young singer + songwriter to the walls within her accredited inspirations — she adds her flair full of soul and contemporized pop stylistics. She cannot be confused with just any old soul and will not be confined to any genre. Wood’s sonic ambiance defies all expectations in her newest emotive single, “If I Could Move.”

“If I Could Move” is a page out of that songwriting book. Written on Wood’s purple cheetah print Telecaster, the 21-year old songwriter’s cutting-edge vocal competence, stained with hints of rasp, comfort the honesty embedded in the acoustic strings. A shy dose of percussion adds substance within the verses, and the ache stapled into the lyricism eats away at a bystander’s heart. The meaning behind the piece confesses the complicated mess where two parties have been together way too long. The four-minute creation depicts the heartbreak yet yearning inclination for somebody in toxic relationships, much like the story crafted in The 1975’s “Somebody Else.” 

“If I Could Move’ is about being with someone who you share so much history with and has put you through so much, and how as time goes on, you’re both growing to resent each other,” comments Wood, “The toxicity of the relationship and the mental games you play keeps the excitement and spark there, but the thought of leaving almost seems worse than being alone.”

Self-described as a “Rock ‘n’ Roll glitter princess”, “If I Could Move” found a home on TikTok after the songstress posted a brief snippet of the track. At the time, the song wasn’t even completed. Wood then finished the composition and brought it into the studio. This single follows Wood’s debut single “Too Old To Play Pretend” which amassed over 500,000 streams. It’s safe to say that the songstress has a long career in front of her. 

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