Burlington’s Francesca Blanchard has released a new song and announced her highly anticipated indie full-length Make It Better to be released June 12. Written in the agonizing space between resentment and letting go, “Happy For You” honors the beautiful albeit excruciating experience of reconciling a love’s end. Blanchard’s lyrics are raw and achingly relatable; she thrusts them to the forefront with a masterfully stark arrangement and intensely intimate vocals. She says, “The song is about choosing to be happy for someone who is happier without you. To me, it feels like walking on eggshells, like trying to salvage the remaining pieces of a broken relationship while making as little noise as possible. It’s a submission to grief, and there is something so fragile in that.” 

In quarantine, Blanchard created a visual to accompany the new single. She says “I’d always wanted the video to be simple and intimate, but wasn’t sure how to accomplish that. Staying home has forced me to use only my immediate resources, so I dug up my mom’s old camcorder from the ’90s and began filming little moments of my day-to-day life. It’s funny, how something as simple as washing your hands or pouring cream into your coffee can feel reminiscent of something lost and break your heart all over again.”