Maisie Peters with Julia Michaels – Kingmaker
With just a handful of dates left on her sold-out global ‘Before The Bloom’ theatre tour, Maisie Peters has shared a new song, ‘Kingmaker’, featuring six-time Grammy nominee Julia Michaels.
Loosely inspired by Hilary Mantel’s historical novel Wolf Hall, Maisie explains: “Kingmaker is a song about power dynamics, chiefly about being a woman and feeling like you’ve offered your time, wisdom, talent, and belief to someone who has then taken advantage of it. It’s about the sting of uplifting someone, only to find out they didn’t deserve you in the first place; about giving a man the benefit of the doubt and having it thrown in your face.”
She continues: “I loved writing this song with Julia, as I think we have both had the experience of achieving success and witnessing the impact that has on the romantic relationships in our lives – on the egos of the men who say they want a strong woman, until it “makes them bitter.” We recorded this song very intentionally as a duet, going line for line instead of verse for verse, so it could really be heard as a conversation between two friends sympathising with each other, which really is exactly what the writing process was like.
Julia is a hero of mine – her songwriting has undoubtedly been one of, if not the biggest, influences on my own writing, and it is one of the greatest honours of my career to have a song out with her. She has become not only a trusted collaborator but also a real friend, and I really am so excited for this song to be out in the world.”
Julia adds: “Working with Maisie is a dream. Her lyricism is so colorful and vibrant. When you write with her you feel completely immersed in her world. You feel like you’ve lived it yourself.”
Alongside ‘If You Let Me’ with Marcus Mumford, ‘Kingmaker’ is one of two features on Maisie’s anticipated third studio album, Florescence, due out 15 May.
Co-produced with two-time Grammy winner Ian Fitchuk, the record is a meditation on how the right love can help heal the wrong ones. It’s an album about perspective, self-realisation, healing, and ultimately, learning how to flourish.
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