hello!
i hope this new year is treating you well. i have a lot going on! i'm going back to new york soon, and wanted to check in with everyone to see how you all are doing. so here's to hoping all is well.
remember how i told you to look out for a potential new single coming soon? well, the time has finally come! my new single, “Who We Were Meant to Be" is dropping this Friday on all streaming platforms! I am hopeful this rollout is smooth, but also a little weary given my history (re: Spotify versus Ben McKelvey Heaven, the Afterlife fiasco 2023). nonetheless, i am excited anyway.
a little about this release. “Who We Were Meant to Be” had a weird entry into my life. I had just finished recording and producing the two-year anniversary edition of “things i never said to you” and i was feeling a little burnt out in all honesty. this happened because i'd really pushed myself creatively and literally, as i was balancing school and recording and producing basically a new full-length album over the course of two weeks, it was no small feat for me. i found myself not writing, not singing, not producing, just living my life, and i was feeling a little bad about it. i hate getting writers block, i feel unfulfilled in a weird way, as i feel the most in tune with myself when i am writing and making music. i was laying in bed one night when all of a sudden this line popped into my head; “i long to be fulfilled/i know, i know the drill.” and it went from there. that night i wrote the first few verses and part of the chorus, and i shelved it and didn't return to it for another month or so (this was in october of this past year).
then, the final for the songwriting course i was taking last semester came around. the assignment was pretty open-ended; write a song that fits into a movie or tv scene of your choosing (i'm paraphrasing, but you get the jist). so i returned back to that song. when i make music, i can hear what i want the finished product to sound like in full in my head, and i had been hearing what would inevitably become “who we were meant to be” playing in my head throughout this entire time. i returned back to the song that night, and had it finished by the time i went home for thanksgiving. embarassingly enough, most of the song is actually, albeit loosley, based off of the quinn x rachel x finn love triangle from the first few seasons of glee. i had a lot of trouble deciding which tv show or movie to write about, and that was what i ended up going with.
i presented the song, and that was that. i honestly shelved it at that point. i had thought about putting it out offically, but because i had just put out my album at the beginning of december, i hesitated as to not over-saturate. then, towards the top of this month, i put the song on YouTube and Soundcloud out of pure happenstance. i just wanted to post it because i liked the song, i had no intentions of actually putting it out offically as i said. i even used a photo of me at a state park from two to three years prior, for some perspective as to how unserious i was about this release. the song gained a bit of traction (more than i was used to) on YouTube, so that was the only reason i decided to offically release it.
and that brings us to today! i'm actually very excited about this song coming out, i really love it a lot. i think you will too.
Who We Were Meant to Be - Friday 1/19!
all my love, hope ur well,
Ben <3
p.s. the image with this post is the cover art for the song, photographed by my bestest friend ever, nena (she did the photos for Heaven, The Afterlife, and the front cover of things i never said to you (the two year anniversay edition).