“Wrestling”, a new song by MAGUIRE (London-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Gillian Maguire), doesn’t sound like it should be called “Wrestling”. After all, when we think of wrestling, we think of strength and machismo, whether we’re thinking about the WWE or the Olympic-style wrestling done by sweaty men in singlets. MAGUIRE’s “Wrestling”, on the other hand, is stark, ethereal, and beautiful: it sounds like a marble statue bathed in moonlight. It’s hardly the kind of music you’d put someone in an armbar to.
The song starts with Maguire’s piano, churning and rumbling in a lower octave. It sounds like a river flowing at night, with its dark, glassy surface and the way the notes seem to tumble over each other. Then, Maguire begins to sing, her voice tender and rich with vibrato. Although comparing female singer-songwriters to Kate Bush is a cliche, “Wrestling” is reminiscent of the art pop legend’s most recent output: moody, contemplative piano, tinges of jazz, a sense of liminal-space uncanniness.
Maguire sings of “restless nights” spent “wrestling with life”, and assures her lover that she’d “much rather be wrestling with you”. Then, in the next line, she punctures what could have been a lewd come-on and exposes the neediness at its core: “nestled up to you.” Here, the title starts to make sense: whether it’s a metaphor for sex, dominance, or something else, wrestling has as much to do with emotions as it does with physicality.
In contrast to the song’s intimacy, emotional and otherwise, there’s a strong vein of alienation that runs through “Wrestling”. Not just the alienation that comes with being away from your lover, but the alienation that comes from living in a huge city like London, floating from night to grey, rainy night in a haze of prescription drugs, “drowning in a stream of thoughts”. That theme is expanded upon in the song’s video; shot in black and white, Maguire moves all over her bedroom, pacing and lounging and looking in the mirror but never leaving.
“Wrestling” recently got a boost from Annie Lennox, who shared it on Facebook and said it made her cry. You can see why a song like this touched the ex-Eurythmics singer so deeply: like some of Lennox’s best work, “Wrestling” is simultaneously open and reserved, rich with emotion while still keeping just enough hidden to be interesting. The title, in fact, makes perfect sense: the song shows the quiet, subtle strength of intimacy and longing.
