Canadian singer-songwriter Amanda Kind’s new single ends with a namesake question: “Does it get easier?”

It’s a musing we’ve all wrestled with amidst the throes of heartbreak, and the new song — “easier,” stylized in the humble lowercase tradition of e.e. cummings — explores the more complex query of how to grieve the loss of someone who’s still living.

Give a listen and look at “easier” on YouTube here:

Based on a personal experience she describes as “the intersection of grief and rejection,” Amanda experienced a difficult break-up that wasn’t her choice. “Knowing that someone you love(d) is out there in the world, happier without you, is a complicated pain,” she shares. “I kept thinking, ‘does it get easier?’

“That question turned into a refrain.”

With a lyric video and cover art that make use of ocean imagery, Amanda belts her alt-pop ballad out with a bold, full-bodied confidence over elegant piano and strings. Listeners feel the engulfing pain, riding the waves of courage needed to move forward, before being enveloped in the searing heartache all over again; Amanda Kind’s voice soars above the choppy waters, the horizon always in sight, until she finds resolve.

i travel on the road to redemption
no need to forgive
i’ve made a fresh start
but i still keep you in my heart

Born in British Columbia, and based in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, Amanda Kind is a multi-talented singer and songwriter with a wide range and a powerful voice; she is known as much for her own work as she is as one of the area’s most in-demand vocal coaches.

When the COVID-19 pandemic capsized the music industry, the change of routine allowed time to reflect on her own journey as an artist. After years of teaching students to ‘claim their space,’ ‘use their voices’, and ‘do what you love, no matter what,’ Amanda realized she needed to re-apply those lessons to her own life; she joined a number of virtual songwriting groups, met musicians and performers from across the country, reconnected with old performer friends, and began voraciously writing new music.

Her new single “easier” is one of the fruits of that time of radical self-care.

Grappling with her own grief, Amanda found relief and answers through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Because of this, it was important for her to find a collaborator who understood the power of therapy, and she connected with songwriter and producer Sam Hillifer (JP Sunga, Safe as Houses, Will Currie and the Country French).

As personal as the song is, the two considered many iterations of loss while writing “easier.” “We talked about all the kinds of loss where the other person is still out there living in the world: Divorce. One-sided break-ups. Losing someone slowly to dementia or Alzheimer’s. Fractured friendships. Broken families,” she recalls of the process. Essentially, “the scenarios where you thought that person would always be in your life, and now they aren’t.”

Writing “easier” proved a cathartic and essential gateway to healing for Amanda. “Ironically, it helped me process the pain and made it easier to accept,” she says. “I hope it will strike a chord with others who have experienced the dissolution of an important relationship.

“It’s a special kind of grief.”

By the end, the song reveals the title is, in fact, the answer to the question... It does.

For more on Amanda Kind check out her socials here:
amandakind.com/
instagram.com/missakind/
facebook.com/amanda.kind
twitter.com/missakind
open.spotify.com/track/1YXEIuIjfIBNBjLHkay41G?si=db120402bbb94d79&nd=1