If you’ve ever felt you were on the outside looking in, Nancy Hope sees you. In fact, she’s even written a song for you. On her new single, “Sidelines,” the 27-year-old singer-songwriter from Stoney Creek, Ontario, captures the transformative moment at which someone who’s let herself skulk in the shadows for too long decides to step into the light.

“Sidelines, I know that’s where I hide/ To let everyone shine but not me,” she croons, over a plaintive piano melody that pulls straight at the heartstrings. “Fantasize about what it’d be like/ To be in the centre for the world to see.”

Listen on Spotify here: open.spotify.com/track/1XDbM70gsRSyAHETwsfpcA

The fantasy becomes reality as the track swells into full-on power-ballad mode, with Hope’s impassioned delivery matching her resolve that the time to make her move is now: