DANDELION IS TURNING EMOTIONAL LUGGAGE INTO CINEMATIC POP

WORDS KATIE HILLIER

Rising alternative-pop newcomer, Dandelion is continuing to shape her distinctive world of cinematic pop on her new single Scissors. Written from the perspective of wanting to enter a relationship without carrying the damage of the past into it, the song confronts the frustrating reality that healing cannot be achieved by simply cutting away the parts of yourself you would rather forget. 

The song was written four years ago in the first apartment Dandelion shared with her partner Zacke, emerging from an unusually domestic starting point: Dandelion at the piano outside the bathroom while the pair sang lines back and forth as he stood in the shower, the song ultimately moving beyond the desire to rewrite the past and towards an acceptance of it.

With part one of her debut album, My Sadness Needs Your Full Attention set for release in autumn 2026, F Word caught up with Dandelion to discuss new relationships, releasing an album in two parts and incorporating personal experiences within songwriting.

Katie Hillier: Your new single Scissors explores the frustration of trying to heal before entering a new relationship. What influenced the meaning of the song when you wrote it four years ago, and how has your relationship with it changed since then?

Dandelion: I wrote it with my partner Zacke about four years ago, we had been together for 2 years already and I felt that we were somewhat starting to trust that this was gonna last. We both came into the relationship with quite a lot of emotional luggage - very cute, very healthy! The song was made about that feeling of desperately wanting to start fresh with someone. Like, okay, this is good, so maybe I can just cut away all the bad parts of myself now and never bring them into this relationship. Obviously that is not how being a person works. Four years later I hear it very differently. Back then it felt like a song about trying to fix myself. Now it feels more like a song about realising I probably don’t have to.

Katie: Looking back at the Dandelion who wrote Scissors, what do you think she would make of Dandelion now, both as a person and an artist?

Dandelion: I think she would be relieved and probably a little shocked. I was much more scared of everything then. I overthought what I was making, how I was perceived, whether I was doing things “right”. I think now I trust my instincts a lot more, both musically and personally. She would probably also be very happy that I didn’t suddenly become a calm, emotionally stable person writing acoustic songs about gratitude. The drama survived!

 "Someone can love you before the renovation is finished."

Katie: You’ve described the song as trying to “undo yourself” and cut away from the parts of your past that might hurt something new. Why do you think we so often feel the need to fix ourselves before allowing ourselves to be loved?

Dandelion: Because it feels much safer to think love is something you can qualify for. You know if I just become less jealous, less sad, less complicated, less affected by everything that has happened to me, then I’ll finally be easy enough to love, and therefore I won’t be left all the time (that was my phobia for years and years, that I would let someone in and they would just leave out of nowhere). There’s something very comforting about turning yourself into a renovation project. The thing is, someone can love you before the renovation is finished.

Katie: The song ultimately moved toward accepting your past rather than trying to erase it. Was that something you understood when you wrote Scissors or is it a perspective you’ve developed over time?

Dandelion: Definitely over time. Your girl spent years in therapy…But I think when I wrote it I was so extremely over myself, I never got a break from my head and my fears. I think it wasn’t until I had my son where I fully landed 100%, and now my heart is on the outside and I’m scared of something happening to him instead. It’s strange for a person that has such a complicated relationship to love to suddenly have a kid, it’s the most healing thing I’ve ever experienced. Being unconditionally loved by someone, being somebody’s complete safety. I definitely respect myself more now when I see me through his eyes. 

Katie: If Scissors was a person, what kind of energy would they bring to a room?

Dandelion: She would arrive two hours late, look incredible, immediately tell you something way too personal and then disappear into the bathroom for forty minutes, probably calling an ex, crying taking a line and then throwing away the bag to then pick it up from the trash again lol. 

Katie: Your debut album My Sadness Needs Your Full Attention is being released in two chapters, with part I arriving in October and part II in spring 2027. Why did you want to tell this story across two releases?

Dandelion: The album started feeling more like two emotional periods than one long collection of songs. Part I lives more inside the feeling. It’s messy, obsessive, romantic, lonely, dramatic. It doesn’t necessarily know what to do with any of it yet.

Part II feels more like what happens after you’ve been sitting in those feelings for a while. Not in a very inspirational “and then I healed” way, because unfortunately I don’t think I have written that album yet haha. But there’s more perspective.

I liked the idea of letting people live in the first part before giving them the rest of the story.

Katie: How would you say Scissors fits within the album, and how does it relate to the wider project?

Dandelion: It’s kind of one of the emotional keys to the whole album. A lot of My Sadness Needs Your Full Attention is about what happens when you desperately want love to save you from yourself, while slowly realising that is an insane amount of responsibility to give another person. So Scissors is right in the middle of that. It’s romantic and melancholic, but underneath it there’s this panic of please let this be different, please let me be different this time.

 "Sometimes you need to play a song sixteen times and stare out of a car window."

Katie: ONONON and Scissors explore different aspects of healing, from emotional limbo to confronting the past. What emotional journey do you hope listeners will experience as they move through the album?

Dandelion: I hope it feels less like a healing journey and more like being inside someone’s head while they’re trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. There are moments where you feel invincible, then two songs later you’re completely back at square one. That feels more honest to me. I love music that lets you be dramatic without immediately trying to teach you something. Sometimes you don’t need a lesson. Sometimes you need to play a song sixteen times and stare out of a car window.

 "I want it to feel like pop music playing during the worst decision of your life.."

Katie: How did you approach translating such personal experiences into the cinematic alternative pop sound that defines your project?

Dandelion: I think I naturally make everything bigger in music than it probably was in real life. A small feeling becomes a massive synth, one bad night suddenly needs strings, distorted drums and a choir. That’s basically the process. I love pop music, but I also love when something feels slightly uncomfortable or broken around the edges, so we’ve tried to keep the songs very direct emotionally, but build these bigger, darker worlds around them. I want it to feel like pop music playing during the worst decision of your life.

Katie: And finally, what is your favourite F word?

Dandelion: Fuck. I wish I had a more interesting answer, but it’s incredibly useful.