Lauren Mayberry. Photo by Scarlett Casciello.
Last month, Lauren Mayberry — best known as the lead vocalist and drummer of the Glasgow synth-pop group Chvrches — shared her first-ever solo single, “Are You Awake?” Today (October 10), she’s returned with that track’s follow-up, “Shame.”
Where “Are You Awake? was a lovesick piano ballad, the new song is an upbeat number in the vein of Mayberry’s work with Chvrches. “What a shame, shame / It’s a shame / It’s a shame game / In the den of a lion,” she sings in the hook, pounding home the song’s title and central theme.
Read Lauren Mayberry’s statement on “Shame,” hear the song, and check out her upcoming live dates below.
I had the idea for a while of a song that had the tagline of ‘what a shame,’ but in a sarcastic way, and the word “shame” having a double meaning — the shame you feel and internalize, but what a shame you feel like that and can’t change it.
Looking back on a lot of my life in terms of relationships, sexuality, and my sense of self in the world, there is a lot of shame associated with that. I came into my teens in the early-mid 2000s, a time period we now regard as a bit of a shithole in terms of gender and media messages (post Woodstock 99, the dawn of sex tape leaks, Girls Gone Wild, etc, etc). What was deemed “attractive” for women and girls was quite disturbing in hindsight, and that’s what went into my brain at a formative time, romanticizing bargain-basement, local-band-boy versions of Reality Bites Ethan Hawke. But now I know better, my wiring is still to find those things attractive on a cellular level. I know not to want those things academically, but emotionally, romantically, sexually, I have been trained to find those things valuable and attractive.
I know you are what you eat, and it’s the taste that keeps me tame.
Lauren Mayberry October 2023 tour dates
October 11 - Amsterdam, NL - Melkweg Oz
October 12 - Berlin, DE - Lido
October 13 - Munich - Strom
October 15 - Paris, FR - La Maroquinerie
October 16 - Cologne, DE - Luxor
October 17 - Prague, CZ - Rock Cafe
October 19 - Vienna, AT - Flex
October 21 - Zurich, CH - Bogen F
October 22 - Milan, IT, - Magnolia
October 24 - Barcelona, ES - La Nau
October 25 - Madrid, ES - Sala Capernico
