In early August, Scottish singer-songwriter Katie Gregson-MacLeod posted a cover of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Punisher” to TikTok, then followed up days later with a snippet of an original song inspired by her hero. Seated at the piano, she sang about the devastation of a one-sided relationship, the wifely impulse to relinquish your own personhood for the sake of an emotionally unavailable lover: “I’m not feeling human/I think he’s a good guy.” The unfinished track, “complex,” quickly became TikTok’s new sad-girl anthem, its raw emotionality attracting comparisons to Olivia Rodrigo’s “drivers license.” Popular Gen Z artists like Camila Cabello, Madison Beer, and Gracie Abrams dueted Gregson-MacLeod’s video, singing along or contributing their own lyrics. Record labels lined up at the coffee shop she works at; the 21 year old eventually signed with Columbia.
It’s increasingly common for young singer-songwriters to go viral with early drafts that bare their most intimate feelings. While Gregson-MacLeod’s lyrics could be gimmicky—relying on the cliché of needing someone “like water,” invoking the “cool girl” archetype—her stark, melancholic delivery still made the song striking. After their big moment, nascent TikTok songwriters scramble to finish their music before the internet moves on to the next tearjerker, which is perhaps why the recently released full version of “complex”—still labeled a “demo”—feels a little stitched-together. The new verses, which tell a coming-of-age story, feel like they belong to a separate song. The chorus, addressed to a man who seemingly couldn’t care less, makes your inner feminist want to scream “Girl, stand up!” But “complex (demo)” is a good example of how to go viral by tugging at heartstrings, and the urge to save someone who can’t give you the love you need is only too familiar.
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