Lindsay Munroe moves beyond shame with raw new single “Split”

A raw and devastating reckoning with shame, Linsday Munroe’s new single “Split” looks back on the parts of herself the singer-songwriter changed to avoid judgement in the religious circles she found herself engaged in. “I split myself in two every time I toed the line,” she sings, her voice - a distinctively deep peal - is intense and affecting over pensive guitar strums, carrying with it the tangle of emotions that comes with reflecting on the past.

At the heart-breaking core of the song is in the recurring lyric “I can’t love you when I’m so ashamed”, the voice of the Manchester-based artist stretching higher as she sings as if grasping for something. Towards the end comes the sound of Munroe’s reclamation, as drums and crackling, distorted lead guitar kick in. When she sings now it is with boiling anger in place of shame, a once inward force turned outward; it is an immensely gratifying conclusion to the song to hear such a release.

“’Split’ is one of the rawest songs I have written,” Munroe shares. “I spent my early 20s in conservative religious environments, embedded in black-and-white thinking and beliefs. Increasingly I felt like I had to leave part of myself at the door, painfully unable to be open about my life and choices. ‘Split’ came from an attempt to move beyond the hurt and exhaustion of that situation.”