Kiley Maeve Holds Onto the Fleeting Moments of Youth on “Now”

Pittsburgh singer-songwriter Kiley Maeve reflects on growing up, changing relationships, and the strange nostalgia of missing a moment before it has even ended on her introspective single “Now.”

Written when Maeve was 17, shortly after returning from a trip to Italy and before leaving for college, “Now” captures a transitional period when the world suddenly felt much larger than the familiar boundaries of her hometown. Recorded at Barn Burner Studio in Rochester, New York, the song follows her debut single, “Amy March,” while further establishing the stripped-down, poetic songwriting at the center of her emerging sound.

There is an impressive restraint to “Now.” Maeve does not attempt to make growing up feel more dramatic than it needs to be. Instead, she focuses on the smaller memories and realizations that tend to gain significance only after life moves forward. Her writing explores holding on without becoming trapped by the past, letting relationships change without allowing them to define you, and recognizing the beauty of an ordinary moment while you are still living inside it.

That perspective gives “Now” an emotional maturity that feels especially promising this early in Maeve’s career. Its nostalgia is warm rather than defeated. Memory becomes evidence of growth rather than something preventing it. “Despite the inevitable changes of life, your memories make you who you are and will stick with you as you grow into someone new,” Maeve explains.

Balancing her independent music career with life as a full-time college student, Maeve is learning to give her songwriting room to develop without becoming overly precious about releasing it. With plans to begin work on her debut album next year, “Now” offers an intimate glimpse at a songwriter discovering that some of life’s smallest moments can become the ones worth writing down.

You wrote “Now” at 17, during a period when your life was beginning to expand beyond your hometown. Looking back, what do you understand about that version of yourself now that you couldn’t have understood then?

I was struggling with the idea of change, and back then, I thought that growing up and moving on was something that I would have to reconcile with. It took three years, but I feel more comfortable with the idea than I ever thought I would. I didn't understand that there would come a time when the change would feel natural.

“Now” captures the strange feeling of missing a moment before it has even ended. Why do you think you were already so conscious of time and change at that age?

I had just graduated from high school, and it kind of all caught up to me. I didn't want it to end, or at least I wanted to remember how happy I felt doing what I loved to do that year. I was singing a lot for school, sharing a lot of my music with my friends for the first time, and that summer, I traveled to Italy. It's a bit cliché, but that trip kind of felt like a coming-of-age movie. I would stare at the window of our travel tour bus and just look at the castles dotting the hills along the highway. You just don't see that in the U.S. 

The song explores relationships changing without allowing those relationships to define who you become. Was that something you understood while writing “Now,” or did its meaning become clearer with time?

When I wrote the song, I think that was something I wanted to believe was possible for me. I had placed a lot of my self-worth the year leading up to writing "Now" on the opinions of people who were closest to me. But I didn't really realize how much that would affect me until the nature of those relationships changed, and I was left to deal with the aftermath. It took a lot longer than I would like to admit to heal from that.

You’ve described your songwriting as introspective and poetic. How do you decide which personal experiences belong in a song and which ones you want to keep entirely for yourself?

That is such a good question. Some songs I definitely keep for myself. One reason is that some of the lyrics I write are pretty obviously referencing something about my life. A more interesting reason is that some songs just feel sacred. Songwriting has always been therapy for me, and most of my songs are just about processing what I'm going through.

With “Amy March” and “Now” introducing listeners to your sound, what are you discovering about yourself as a songwriter that you want to explore more deeply on your debut album?

I love this question. Honestly, I'm discovering new influences that I want to implement in the production phase. I write most songs with just me and my guitar, so my sound tends to be very stripped down and folky. But recently, I have been so inspired by the intricate soundscapes of pop artists like Gracie Abrams and Sarah Kinsley, who use synths and electronic sounds so effectively. I don't want to shift completely into pop, but I look forward to broadening the scope of production on this album.