For Alaina May, songwriting begins with words. Based in Brooklyn, New York, the artist describes herself as a lyrics-first writer, drawn to the process of playing around with phrases, themes and stories until they become something listeners can recognise themselves in.
Her latest release Tourniquet captures the emotional push and pull of learning to let go without pretending the hurt never happened. Written during a year of profound personal change, the track finds May reflecting on past relationships, shifting spiritual beliefs and the strange experience of simultaneously moving forward and looking back.
Photo Credits: Hannah Zimmerman
While her sound has roots in indie-pop and indie-folk, she has recently found herself gravitating more towards the folk side of things, allowing the storytelling at the heart of her music to take centre stage. “I’m always just noodling on words and phrases and themes and trying to tell stories in a way that people can grasp onto and see bits of themselves within,” she explains. Rather than simply documenting her own experiences, May looks for the details and emotions that might resonate with someone else's life, too. And with Tourniquet, that search for a shared emotional truth begins with a period of change.
That desire to create something personal yet universal is particularly apparent on Tourniquet, a song born out of a year of significant change. Moving to New York meant adjusting to a new city while simultaneously working through the emotional aftermath of a past relationship. Between meeting new people and establishing a life elsewhere, May found herself caught between looking forward and looking back. “There was just so much intrinsic and extrinsic change happening every single day,” she explains. Eventually, she began to find a way to make peace with the past, not by forgetting it, but by learning to carry it differently. “Not to forget about them, but just to compartmentalize them into a separate entity, I guess.”
“I wrote down the word 'Tourniquet' and I was like, 'oh, why did I not think of that 2 hours ago?'”
The title's metaphor of stopping the bleeding feels perfectly suited to the song's emotional core. Interestingly, however, it was the final piece to fall into place during the writing process. Usually, May establishes a central line early on to guide the rest of the song, but Tourniquet took a different route. “I had been writing the song for a few hours and really trying to find the thing to tie all of the moments together,” she recalls. Then the word appeared on the page, suddenly giving the song a sense of direction. “It felt nice and fitting and all-encompassing.” Tourniquet explores the possibility of finding a way to contain the hurt without allowing it to take over.
Photo Credits: Hannah Zimmerman
“I love when a song or book or film says something in a bit of a cryptic or abstract way, because it makes me think and interpret and find my subjective truth within it.”
May's love of metaphor extends beyond Tourniquet. As a consumer of music, books and film, she gravitates towards storytelling that leaves room for interpretation, allowing audiences to discover their own meaning. “The whole ‘say it without saying it’ of it all,” she explains.
But her writing isn't entirely abstract. May also draws inspiration from the mundane details of everyday life, from washing the dishes to noticing someone on the sidewalk. For her, these ordinary moments can sit alongside much bigger questions of identity and existence, grounding poetic language in something tangible.
That balance also informs how she approaches personal experiences in her music. Having grown up in a conservative Christian environment, May describes her evolving spiritual identity as something that has fundamentally changed her perspective on the world. “I see love differently, I see existence differently, I see humanity differently than I did growing up,” she says. As her beliefs have shifted, so too has her understanding of the experiences that shape her writing. Rather than viewing identity as something fixed, she is interested in how our perspectives evolve and how those changes influence the way we connect with others.
“I think my personal development has been a slow burn.”
For May, personal growth rarely arrives in one dramatic, life-changing moment. “I always feel as though I am a citizen of my own mind,” she says, describing the constant internal dialogue she observes throughout the day. Major experiences, including leaving her hometown, moving to Boston and New York, and falling in love with a woman for the first time, have all shaped her. Yet she sees much of her development as a gradual process of recognising changes in her thoughts, feelings and reactions. “I think that is so interesting to dive into and explore in my writing,” she adds. It's this attention to the quieter moments of becoming that gives her songwriting its reflective quality, allowing her to explore the emotions that don't always have clear beginnings or endings.
Photo Credits: Hannah Zimmerman
“Learning to just accept and sit in this tension did wonders in helping me to move through it.”
Ultimately, May hopes Tourniquet reminds listeners that healing isn't always a linear process. We can feel as though we've moved on, only to find ourselves pulled back into old feelings without warning. “I fought it for so long,” she admits, “but learning to just accept and sit in this tension did wonders in helping me to move through it.”
It's a sentiment that sits at the heart of the track. Moving forward doesn't necessarily mean that something stops hurting, just as closure doesn't require us to forget what happened. Sometimes, it simply means learning to live with the contradictions: being alright one day and struggling the next, missing something while knowing you're ready to move on. With Tourniquet, May offers a gentle reminder that these feelings are part of being human.
Looking ahead, May has one more single planned for next month, promising a more upbeat and cheeky direction, before releasing her debut EP this autumn. She will also be playing the BMI Acoustic Lounge writers' round at Lucinda's in New York City on October 28, followed by a show in Los Angeles in early November, with details still to be announced.
TOURNIQUET OUT NOW.
Words by
Marie Müller, 2026.