Petal – “Stardust”
Kiley Lotz comes from Scranton, Pennsylvania and records fuzzy and catchy and deeply affecting songs under the name Petal. In a couple of weeks, she will release Magic Gone, her second full-length album. Thus far, she’s shared “Better Than You” and “Tightrope,” the album’s first two songs. Those songs prove that she’s an absolute ace when it comes to big, sticky melodies that recall ’90s pop-punk and indie rock. Today, she shares a song that shows she’s capable of deeper things, too.
“Stardust,” the last song on Magic Gone, isn’t the 1927 Hoagy Carmichael standard that’s been famously covered by people like Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, and Willie Nelson, though it does cover some of that song’s bittersweet emotional territory. Instead, it’s a stately, deeply felt song about seeing a relationship coming to an end even though you did your best: “Now we’re living in shitty apartments with mismatched dishes, unlike our parents / Maybe we’d make good parents? / Maybe not, I can’t say / I can’t say I didn’t love you.”
“Stardust” starts out as a quiet, murmuring piano-based ballad, but then the guitars come in and it just explodes. It’s a beautiful, heartwrenching song, and you can hear it below:
Magic Gone is out 6/15 on Run For Cover.