Jade Bird Crafts Brilliant Art From Emotional Experiences » PopMatters

Jade Bird’s lyrics are simultaneously intimate and intense, insightful and poetic. She passionately delivers the material, and her insights come off as poetic revelations.

Who Wants to Talk About Love Jade Bird Glassnote 18 July 2025

Jade Bird originally wrote the title song to her new album, Who Wants to Talk About Love?, almost a dozen years ago. She was addressing the chaotic emotions caused by her parents’ bitter divorce and the dissolution of both sets of grandparents’ marriages. The tune has more current resonance at this point in her life. She has stated that her new record addresses the breakup with her ex-fiancé and former bandmate Luke Prosse.

It’s been four years since Jade Bird‘s last full-length release. She has plenty to say. That doesn’t mean she knows the answers. As the title suggests, she’s ready to chat. The songs are filled with internal dialogue and are often told in the second person as if she is having a conversation with her listeners.

More importantly, the British-born singer-songwriter crafts compelling art from her emotional experiences. The lyrics are simultaneously intimate and intense, insightful and poetic. Jade Bird passionately delivers the material. Her insights come off as poetic revelations. “Is this what dreams are made of? / Being so in love, I can only break your heart,” she croons in a pained voice after “Dreams”.

Jade Bird may strain at appropriate affecting moments, but she never loses control. The strongest songs, such as “Avalanche” and “Nobody”, are full of vocal melismas and runs that simultaneously express joy and heartache that arise at the end of a love affair.

She also plays a mean acoustic guitar, slashing away on cuts such as “Save Your Tears” and “Nobody” to underline the intensity of the message. Jade Bird is by turns angry, hurt, and disappointed. She’s not blaming anyone—neither her lover nor herself. Everything changes. The music ends, and the dance is over. The joke is no longer funny, and the punch line changes. Magic disappears. The list goes on, and we’d be fools to pretend that otherwise. Love contains its own “Catch-22”, as she puts it, with its own contradictory logic. There’s no lesson to be learned. It’s just another chapter in the book of life.

Jade Bird asks, “Who wants to talk about love when it’s all gone?” She does. She understands this is a necessary part of the healing process. Perhaps this is why it took her so long to release a new full-length record. When life was good, she had nothing to say and no reason to do so. There’s a reason why there are so many blues songs in this world and so few happy ones. Who Wants to Talk About Love? allows the singer-songwriter to articulate and reconcile her feelings.

The last song, “Wish You Well”, conflates her relationship with her father and her former lover. Jade Bird lived with her mother after her parents split up and admitted to having had bitter sentiments about his behavior. In a recent interview, she said she wishes her father could be in the audience when she sings this song of quasi-forgiveness. She knows that hate, like love, can hurt all involved and that we all deserve better.