Katie Gregson-MacLeod
Words by Willow Shields
In short; Teenage Love by Katie Gregson-Macleod is To All The Boys I Loved Before for girls who got into age gap relationships as teens with the worst man you’ve ever met in your life.
To say that I, personally, this writer, Willow Shields have not been more intrinsically excited for a release in a while would be the understatement of the year. As soon as Katie Gregson-MacLeod posted a live video of her singing the outro to “Teenage Love”, I knew it would simultaneously ruin my life forever and heal the deepest wounds that I keep hidden. And finally it is out in the world, on the day of a Leo full moon (heightened emotions, ect.) nonetheless. An acoustic guitar driven track that leaves room for all of the power and beautiful bitterness of Katie Gregson-Macleod’s vocals. It’s a gorgeous, bloody mess of pain and beauty. And it is perfect.
‘Teenage Love’ is a total masterclass of sharing the right amount of your soul so that the listener feels it stabbing into theirs. Katie tells the story of her younger self having a relationship with an older guy, reminiscing on all the ways he hurt her and all the things he took from her, he finally “engineered an enemy from someone who adored you.” As someone who has experienced this canon event in what seems to be every creative, beautiful woman’s life, this song feels like a hug for my younger self, saying “life doesn’t end there.” Because as much as this track is a massive ‘fuck you’ to the man who ruined Katie’s life, and the more metaphorical man who ruined all of our lives collectively, Katie Gregson-MacLeod writing ‘Teenage Love’ is solid, living proof that a man can try to ruin your life as hard as he can, try to steal all of your coolness, try to take so much of your life force, joy, girlhood away. But he will never succeed, he’ll never be able to take away your art, your words and everything that makes you, you. Even if you get lost for a while.
“I try to miss you man but it messes my head, trying to marry your face with the things you said, I hate that I’ll get old before you know your crime, and that all I’ve got is to make them rhyme, I hate your stupid bar and your hairline, I hate that you had me before I was even mine, I hate you close to home and far away, and that empty new place where you tax evade, I hate the taxi rank and the drugs you take, I hate that everyone knows and they’ll never say.”