MarthaGunn deal with trauma on new single 'Honest'

Words: Sam Geary 

Brighton band MarthaGunn are back with an atmospheric new track, ‘Honest’, out now via Communion. 

Following ‘Nowhere To Run’, and last year's debut EP ‘Caught Up & Confused’, the euphoric ‘Honest’ sees frontwoman Abi Woodman deliver an authentic reflection as she details grieving the person she once was through confronting fear and trauma.

“Back in 2016 I did a meditation with my mum. I remember asking in my meditation what I needed to do to get better at writing songs. I was shown a piano. I bought a piano a few weeks later and this was the first song I wrote on it," reflects frontwoman Abi Woodman. 

"I didn’t really feel like I wrote it. It was one of those songs that just wrote itself. For me ‘Honest’ is about a few things. It’s the death of the person you were before a trauma. The grief you feel, knowing that person will never exist again and that you will always see life through new eyes due to experiencing something major. It’s also about the fear of failure and the shame associated with that. The fear of not living up to your own or peoples expectations of you.

 “The lyric ‘Bereavement of a friend, a version of yourself naturally came to the end’ is about breaking the shell for painful growth that is necessary to keep going. The only way to move through a painful time is to grow from it. I find that if you don’t choose to grow and keep moving, things become stagnant and you will become depressed. Lastly, it’s an ode to my mum. That woman means everything to me.”