Red-Alert

Do you listen to girl in red? The sapphic music icon released her sophomore album earlier this year, and ahead of her show in Dublin this August, she sat down with Alice Linehan to discuss music, mental health, and her fond memories of touring in Ireland.

Photo by Heather Hazzan.

In April 2024, Marie Ulven Ringheim, better known as girl in red, returned to music with the release of I’M DOING IT AGAIN BABY!. Her highly-anticipated second studio album opens with the track appropriately titled ‘I’m Back’, a nod to the three-year hiatus she was ending. The lyrics provide further explanation:

“I’m back, I feel like myself I was gone for a minute ‘cause I went to get help”.

The Norwegian artist’s new-found optimism permeates the song as she says that the “good life” she has always wanted is “right around the corner”.

With such lyrics, it’s no wonder the record was marketed as an upbeat project full of hope, self-love and confidence. It’s a step away from her previous work and first album, if i could make it go quiet, which holds more darkness, exploring her mental health struggles, among other things.

As many artists will admit, it can often be harder to make music about joy than sorrow, and this was girl in red’s experience too.

“I really struggled with that for a long time,” she told GCN. “As an artist, I’ve also fallen for that romanticised image of sadness multiple times in my life. So when I was in a place where I felt like maybe I wasn’t as much in touch with my emotional side and overthinking side, it was like an identity crisis within my own project. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m happy now, what do I do? What does that music sound like?’

“Then, my therapist, which I think sometimes can be very cringe referencing your conversations with your therapist all the time,” she joked, “He said something that really struck a chord with me.”

He reminded her that “Happiness is also a very vulnerable feeling” in a way that letting yourself be happy also gives others the power to take it away. The emotional high is susceptible to change, and embracing that made her want to have fun on the album.

“I wanted to make something that sounds a little bit wonky and something that sounds silly. Some lyrics aren’t meant to be overly sad or important or anything like that because I embraced the lightness of things being cool even though it’s not really dark.”

She continued: “It was pretty scary because it sounds different than everything else that I’ve done and what I’ve basically built my career off. So I was very nervous and I was very scared. But you’re not really free if you’re creatively not allowing yourself to make something.

“If you’re not allowing yourself to make something that you think is cool because you’re scared that the audience or the people won’t like it, then you’re kind of f *cked.”

While those optimistic tracks were a reflection of her feelings at the time of making them, as she also notes in the lyrics of ‘I’m Back’:

“I know I have a tendency, melancholic tragedy Always seems to follow me ‘round”.

Like many people, girl in red’s mental health fluctuates, and four months on from the album’s release, she admited to being in a more “damp” and “sad place”. However, while touring and promoting a project full of self-love and optimism has its challenges when you’re no longer in that headspace, the 25-year-old said: “I know that I can be happy and that things can be good. So it’s about appreciating the sadness and appreciating the happiness and the highs and lows of everything.”

As somewhat of a sapphic icon (the phrase “do you listen to girl in red?” has become code for “do you like girls?”) it’s no wonder the album is brimming with queerness. However, this reputation, while great, comes with its own pressures and expectations.

“I would like to be seen as a queer artist…I don’t want to remove myself from such an important part of my identity and my art and my music…But also, I do think that to some extent in the past few years, I’ve definitely been scared of saying the wrong things as this like ‘queer icon’,” the singer confessed.

She also discussed facing backlash from some LGBTQ+ listeners because of her song ‘Pick Me’. In the track, girl in red shares her struggles with comparing herself to men and feeling inadequate while with a bisexual partner. The insecurity undoubtedly comes from existing in a heteronormative world where straight relationships are seen as the ideal example. Many queer people battle with the same feelings, but girl in red was accused of being biphobic.

Speaking about the incident while her girlfriend sat beside her, the singer said: “Even though you’re in an accepting part of the world or you live in a city where it’s accepting, I still think [heteronormativity] is so built into the norms and it’s built into almost any person’s core values and in your subconsciousness.

“I think for me, that was just something that’s been a really big part of our relationship and I wasn’t aware that I was so insecure…I’m not biphobic, but I have insecurities.”

She emphasised that she fully acknowledged it was her own issue that she had to address, and the reason she wrote a song about it was because it “took up a lot of space” in her mind. Additionally, if we choose to avoid these difficult conversations, “we’re eliminating this really important part about relationships, which is insecurities,” girl in red expressed.

It should be said that most fans supported the singer as she shared this vulnerable part of herself. They have also been flocking in their thousands to venues around the world to see girl in red perform her newest album live.

“Honestly, every show has been so amazing and I feel like I’ve never been more grateful. I’m so aware of the rareness of the opportunity to play shows around the world, maybe much more now than I was before. I just have this immense gratitude for everything that has happened and everything that I get to do. My diary is just full of me every day being like, ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.’”

The next stop on her tour is Dublin’s 3Arena which she headlines on August 27. Speaking about returning to the Irish capital, she shared: “I feel very connected to Dublin because that was the first show I ever did abroad in my whole life. I got to support Clairo for two Europe shows in 2018, and I think we did The Academy or something. So it’s the place that everything started for me, and I love the crowd there.”

She also revealed that her band has an Irish-inspired pre-show tradition.

“We went to Temple Bar and it was like a bunch of [trad music] and that sort of turned itself into this thing that we sing at every single show; all of us, we jump around and we slam things while we do it…I’m doing a little leprechaun dance now just so you know, in the car with my hand on the steering wheel,” she laughed.

Girl in red concluded the interview by saying that she and her band love “everything about” Ireland, and they look forward to “having such an amazing night” at the upcoming concert.

A limited number of tickets remain on sale for girl in red’s show at the 3Arena on August 27; buy them now at ticketmaster.ie.