“Women’s hearts are lethal weapons…Did you hold mine and feel threatened?”
You may find yourself thinking, “Who wrote that? Taylor Swift? Shakespeare?” Those would be good guesses, but both of those answers would be wrong.
A 23-year-old from the UK named Maisie Peters would be the correct answer. That excerpt is a lyric from her song “History of Man,” from her 2023 album – The Good Witch.
From uploading YouTube videos in 2015, being discovered in 2017, to now releasing a top UK-charting album, The Good Witch, I wonder…
Is Maisie Peters our next global star?
As a self-proclaimed major Swiftie, I am always looking for new artists that remind me of Taylor’s songwriting, passion, storytelling, and craft. Taylor has a particular way with words in her songs that is able to encapsulate her exact feelings and experiences, while also feeling like your very emotions and stories are being put into words.
I find this one-of-a-kind songwriting and artistry in Maisie Peters.
“Your face in fluorescent looks different in the daylight.” – “Coming of Age” from The Good Witch
How does one say, “I realized what I thought was real and natural was actually not true at all?” Maisie Peters manages to translate that mundane and undescriptive sentence into something tangibly visible and emotional. She is able to translate the feeling you get after a break-up of realizing what you saw in someone was not reality into a short-and-sweet lyric. She is able to change the phrase “taking off the rose-colored glasses” into something completely different, yet so similar.
“You’re pretty like a girl till you’re vicious like a man…Then you’re evasive on the phone till you’re sorry on the floor.” – “Wendy” from The Good Witch
Maisie wittingly and strongly sums up the chaos that is a toxic man in just two lyrics. How she managed to condense what I have filled two entire journals with is beyond me. The subtle jab at all men while simultaneously hyping up all women is my favorite part. Not to mention this song is a play on the classic Peter Pan story – Maisie sings about being a guy’s “Wendy,” wanting to willingly follow him to “Neverland,” but knowing she doesn’t want to be “that girl.”
“You fell for the moment, so you lied to the girl.” – “Yoko” from The Good Witch
Being led on, deceived, mistreated, and underappreciated within a one-sided love is what Maisie captures within this lyric. I find her songwriting can be so specific to certain situations, but she also manages to be immensely relatable within such short verses. Being heartbroken is a feeling all of us experience in some capacity within this lifetime, and Maisie is masterful at encasing this variety of histories within her songs.
“Give me a minute, turned into months so I’m gonna fall out of love by the end of the song.” – “The Song” from The Good Witch
Have you found yourself telling friends and family that you’re going to move on, you just need some time? And then such time passes and you’re still right where you started? That feeling, the enigma of finally moving forward, is exactly what Maisie angelically sings about in one of my favorite up-beat songs on her album.
“I’m the girl on the train tracks holding your hand, halfway to the moon on a plane you couldn’t land.” – “The Last One” from The Good Witch
While Maisie is so talented and eloquent when it comes to singing about heartbreak, she can also descriptively tell the story of being there for someone, no matter what. Her metaphors and imaginary circumstances feel real. She sings of her personal experiences, while also connecting with her listeners through vague yet specific, sentimental verses.
“A new home, a swan dive, a blank page, a rewrite, a black cat in the streetlights, an open door, the comedown of closure, the girls and I do yoga, I wake up and it’s October – the loss is yours, Brick Lane in the brisk cold, and red wine on his hip bone, the witching hours of Stockholm that you won’t see, sunflowers in the kitchen, a heartbreak in remission, the universe is shifting and it’s all for me…all for me.” – “There It Goes” from The Good Witch
Last but certainly not least, I share my absolute favorite songwriting of Maisie’s. Naming off various concepts, events, ideas, feelings, etc., Maisie creates a comprehensive list of elements that precisely yet elaborately describe and define the feeling of moving on and feeling like your life is falling into place after misfortune and adversity.
Maisie Peters’ growth in her career is something I am eager to watch – I anticipate her history in the industry will be similar to Taylor Swift’s. Through storytelling, poetic songwriting, and emotional connection, I find Maisie taking on a lot of characteristics of Taylor’s artistry.
While I have only shared a few anecdotes from Maisie’s discography, her lyrical work is one for the books.