Origins is our new music feature offering artists the platform to share unique insights into and break down their latest release. Today, Madison Cunningham opens up about her new single, “Anywhere.”
Following the release of her critically acclaimed EP, Wednesday (Extended), two-time Grammy-nominee Madison Cunningham is back with her new single, “Anywhere,” the video for which is premiering exclusively via Consequence today (April 19th).
“Anywhere” picks up where the whimsical, pop-infused folk of Wednesday — which was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2022 Grammys — left off, complete with a theatrical and playful Francophone music video. “I love the way a song will filter through different channels to find itself,” Cunningham tells Consequence. “This was an effort by my friends and community, and I’m so incredibly proud of what we made!
Written with Tyler Chester and produced by Mike Elizondo, “Anywhere” is a breezy, playful track in the vein of Joni Mitchell. “‘Anywhere’ is about the inner dialogue you have with a person when they’re not there, saying all the things you would say if you could,” Cunningham tells Consequence. “It’s also about the combusting madness that comes with letting people’s opinion of you hold too much weight.”
Get a first look at the Caitlin Gerard-directed music video for “Anywhere” below, and check out Madison Cunningham’s full Origins of the track.
Juana Molina:
Juana Molina, photo by Jonathan Fritz
“Anywhere” is a classic example of a song that took many iterations to find. It started out as an improv piece prompted by one of my favorite artists, Juana Molina, during the pandemic, and then sat formless for about a year.
Anger:
I [spent] months trying to figure out what the song was reaching for — feeling quite angry and paralyzed, and unable to pinpoint the source of my anger. It took some more hashing to realize the song was scratching at all of the things I wish I could say out loud, and the combusting madness that comes with these inner dialogues you get into with yourself over people’s opinions (real or not) about you. Blurring the lines between reality and imagination.
Kurt Vonnegut:
There’s a lyric in the song that says “pay no mind to me and my Vonnegut hair,” which is a line about toiling at something to no avail. I kept imagining [Kurt] Vonnegut somewhere out there letting his hair grow wild, struggling to finish one of his books. And it was an inspiring thought to me.
Puppets:
When it came to making the music video for the song, my friend and director Caitlin Gerard had the idea of me performing to an unimpressed crowd of marionettes, and trying to win them over. Which I think is a comical way to speak to the song’s meaning. Breaking your back to win over the opinions of people that aren’t even real.
