For those of you who aren’t familiar with Maggie Rose, she is a Maryland-born singer who signed to RPM Entertainment in 2011. She released several albums before singing to RPM Entertainment under the name of Margaret Durante (her last name), including a cover of Kings of Leon’s 2008 single “Use Somebody”. She began performing under the name of Maggie Rose in 2011, and released her first single, “I Ain’t Your Mama” under that name in 2012. The fun, sassy single peaked at #29 on the Country Airplay Chart. The slower tempo “Better” followed in early 2013. Both songs were featured on her first RPM album, Cut To Impress, which received a great deal of critical praise and landed on several “Best of 2013” album lists. I was among those that enjoyed the record, with my favorite songs being the murder ballads, “Looking Back Now” and “The Preacher’s Daughter”.
Maggie Rose showed a lot of potential with her first record and her future seemed very promising. Unfortunately, she appeared to veer off track with her not so great single, “Girl in Your Truck Song”. The single took the opposite route rising female duo Maddie & Tae took with their smash single, “Girl in a Country Song”, choosing to instead play up the Bro Country stereotype and say “I want to be the girl in your truck song”. Admittedly I was very disappointed with the single, knowing full well that Maggie was capable of far better material.
Luckily, Maggie Rose is back with a brand new single, and it’s a good one. “Broken” is a sweet, melancholy-infused song carrying an honest and beautiful message. The single finds Maggie declaring that “we all come from something broken”, that the scars and brokenness makes us who we are. The production is stripped down to the bare bones, featuring an acoustic guitar and a lovely fiddle. The mournful cry of the fiddle adds a touch of melancholy and finality to the single.
Written by Maggie, Corey Crowder, and Patrick Davis, “Broken” finds hope amid the darkness of life. The song opens with a sad truth, “Life’s full of broken things/ like hearts, homes, and dreams/ we all come from something broken”, and goes on to describe the things/events that can get life off track, “Wrong turns down broken roads/ lead to paths you never know/ yeah worlds collide, like yours and mine/ in the darkness, hold on tight.” The song isn’t all despair though, it also has a determination about it, a sense of hope and acceptance, as Maggie serenely sings, “yeah tonight, for the first time I feel freedom/ and I don’t mind showing all my jagged pieces/ ‘cause life’s full of broken things/ like hearts, homes, and dreams/ we all come from something broken.”
At first listen, many will think this song is just another sad country song, but “Broken” is much more. At the heart of the single, you’ll find hope and light. The single may carry a truth that a lot of us don’t want to face, that we’re all broken, but it carries it in light and hope. After all, those experiences, the ones that leave us broken and scarred, are also the ones that mold us and make us the people we are today, and that’s truly a beautiful thing.
This single has restored my hope for Maggie Rose’s bright future. Trust me, you’ll want to give “Broken” a listen.
Originally posted here.
