Wildflower by Cyrena Wages

She's back: the floweriest of wild ones, now Queen of Memphis, no longer the Princess.

Wildflower is a song about transformation. It calls to mind the chrysalis, the princess becoming the queen, the type B becoming the type A, the fiancée becoming the bride. There is almost too much news this week as we are now allowed to talk about the name of the second album, arriving with you in October, called Miss Melancholia!

Cyrena loves an exclamation mark and so do horror movies. I watched The Bride! this week, by coincidence. Cyrena has played a bride before in photo shoots but finally the day arrived when she literally transformed herself, throughout a day of being the bride, into a wife, that most civilised yet puzzling of creatures.

I have seen a few reels from the big day. She wore her mother’s dress. She won’t mind me accusing her of using this whole process to get more songwriting material. I know this because I’ve seen her using the backdrop of the wedding to shoot another music video. It’s more of a fact than an accusation.

I’ve been listening to today’s number, Wildflower, for over a year and it still grows. This one is different yet familiar. Cyrena told us in an interview last year that this one had a special place in her heart.

I wrote “Wildflower” about the woman everyone warns you about, who is also the woman everyone wants. It explores the tension between rebellion and intimacy, the space between a midlife crisis and a genuine ache for love. I’ve always found dark romance to be the most evocative romance, and the "opposites attract" dynamic of my personal life has made its way into most of my writing, with wit, cynicism, and playfulness as tools to handle vulnerability.

So this is not a narrative story like If It Ain’t Broke or Find Out (FAAFO), or anything you care to choose from 2024’s debut album, Vanity Project. This is a first person song in which the singer goes to sleep as a rose and wakes up a wildflower.

The thing about the wildflower, in spite of its name, is that it remains a very delicate, precarious plant. A rose lives on a sturdy bush. A wildflower is cast to the winds as a seed, hoping to get lodged in some grass, its life short even if it germinates. I think we can expect more gardening songs in the future. They’re en vogue at the moment, to wit: Willow Avalon’s hilarious Hypothetically Speaking.

This is as close as Cyrena Wages or C$ gets to bopping. It feels slower but also light and airy, despite the dark romance of the lyrics. She refers to daisies and weeds too. The only question I have is: how much of the song is about Cyrena herself? She says she wrote it about ‘the woman’ everyone warns you about… but who is that?

The good news for you is that Cyrena has lost none of her edge or anger, despite being the happiest she has ever been. I used to fear that if she settled down and became a home-maker, or a trad wife, perish the thought, the music might stop. In fact she is only just getting going, and proudly holds on to that sharp dark edge.

You can stream Wildflower in all the usual places and find out more on her website. You can presave Miss Melancholia! here.