Lola Young is back, and the first thing she did was call James Blake. “From Down Here,” out Friday (May 22), is her first new song since she announced a break from her career in September 2025, and it was written, she says, the morning after the Grammys, where “Messy” won her a trophy.
The FADER describes “From Down Here” as vulnerable and raw, “filled with rasp and expressiveness,” over a Blake beat of warped electric piano chords and a haunting chopped drum loop. DIY calls it “soaring” and “bittersweet.” The lyrics capture a moment of getting what she wanted and finding it comes with turmoil. “Can I make them laugh? Can I make them stay?” she sings.
Watch the video above. The origin story is the point. “The day after the GRAMMYs, I had a wave of inspiration hit me, so I got in the studio with the incredible James Blake and made this song,” Young said, per DIY.
I am rewriting the next chapter of my story because what a boring book the old one would’ve been anyway.
Lola Young, DIY
The song lands after a hard stretch. Young announced she was cancelling everything “for the foreseeable future” in September 2025, after a collapse onstage at the All Things Go festival in New York. Her statement at the time, quoted by The FADER, asked fans to “give me a second chance once I’ve had some time to work on myself and come back stronger.” Since then she has been easing back: a Rolling Stone Future of Music cover, a handful of live shows including Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Sunderland, and now a record.
The single is also the front end of a busy few months. She starts a run of U.K. headline dates next month, including two nights at O2 Academy Brixton, returns to All Things Go in September and plays Austin City Limits in October. That is a lot of stages for a singer who canceled everything eight months ago. Along with Charli xcx’s “Rock Music”, it is one of the month’s big resets, and it is on our list of May’s best new music.
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