Love Letter to a Record: MCK on Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘English Rain’

September 3, 2022

Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with an album they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, Aotearoa indie pop artist MCK recounts falling in love with Gabrielle Aplin’s English Rain (2013)

The debut album from MCK has been many years in the making. Mckenzie Comer was discovered on YouTube in 2010, at the age of 13, but ultimately fled the platform a few years later. Comer launched MCK in 2018 and has released a string of singles and EPs over the past handful of years. Her debut album, Becoming, is out now, featuring the singles ‘An Honest Mess’, ‘Paragraphs’ and ‘Tunnel Vision’.

MCK’s Love Letter to Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘English Rain’

MCK: The by-product of being a 13-year-old YouTube star was more complicated than I expected. When I got “discovered” online, it felt like all my wildest dreams were coming true. But as a songwriter, I had only just begun finding my voice, and it started to become difficult to establish my own ideas when perfect country-pop songs were being plucked from Nashville catalogues for me to release instead.

Three years later, my high school reputation was solely based on the videos I had posted online, and I felt stuck in a younger version of myself unable to change or start over. I ripped all of my YouTube videos down one night when I’d had enough of the mocking and teasing that followed me around in classrooms. And with my self-confidence at an all time low, I didn’t perform or share any music for about four years.

It was during that time that I heard ‘Home’ by Gabrielle Aplin. I had one friend that I trusted and felt comfortable sharing my music with, and while songs that had previously inspired my songwriting lived on Taylor Swift’s love-scorned early albums, Gabrielle was more imaginative, conceptual, mature.

Gabrielle Aplin – ‘Home’

English Rain quickly became the soundtrack to my last two years of high school, as I experienced most of my firsts after giving up my earlier years to travel and being surrounded by adults, and it ended up playing a huge role in getting my creative confidence back.

‘How Do You Feel Today?’ softened the blow of early mornings on the drive in to school. ‘Wake Up With Me’ was a glimpse into a love I wanted and aspired to. ‘Start of Time’ changed everything – the peaks and troughs of production and the metaphors like combining atoms and comparing herself to a drop of water running down a mountain side.

It re-ignited my curiosity for songwriting and changed my appreciation of music forever. Every song holds a piece of myself within and I’m forever grateful to this record for carrying me through some of the best and worst of times.