Mighloe’s “Cruel”: A Raw Story of Pain, Loss and Resilience
Mighloe’s latest single “Cruel” has us swimming in our feels. Raw and vulnerable, her voice drips with pain and power like honey and oak. She tells us the story of a toxic relationship that battered her soul, mind and body.
The song reflects soulfully on how such a relationship can impact one’s mental health to the point of being physically worn down. The chorus perfectly captures this: escaping the harmful words, the “misery and blame”, can be difficult when those words become “trapped in (our) head”, become our own, and slowly tear at us. With the weight of trauma, we may find our bodies “caving more each day” to the point where we become “frail and so afraid”. Hurt is not just in our minds, but our bodies too.
During the studio version of the song, the pang of the guitar accentuates her words in the chorus, punches us in the guts and marks us with its sudden bellows. The guitar is accompanied by some smashing high hats in the second chorus, softly fluttering us and gently propelling us towards the bridge where she finally breaks free and gathers “all of (her) strength” to leave. Finding her worth, she is empowered. Stronger, she finds herself again and is happy once more. Despite her experiences, she still sees “all the beauty in love that awaits” her and sings of running towards it. To have such hope and power makes her all the more triumphant. This is a song of strength and resilience, not just pain and loss.
The video version of the track is more bare, more raw, just her and the bassist. With this spotlight on her vocals, her emotions pierce through even more. The tilted and slowly rocking camerawork lulls us and yet creates an unsettling feeling of unease. All this is with a backdrop of a forest with bare trees, bare like her soul, open for us to listen to, bare like the way a toxic love can leave you, empty and destroyed. Yet just like a bare forest ready for regrowth, she too is ready for the new. Dressed in white and green, donned in pearls, she is simple and elegant, ready for fresh green growth. She sits, a shift from her standing, when she sings of her newfound power. Powerful and grounded, like a queen, she holds her head high, ready for what the winds of love bring her.