Emily Yoke - Love Lost

Oh! Pretty New Music #7

Feb 25, 2023

Emily Yoke is a name & a voice you should definitely have heard of. I heard her angelic voice when one night, I was curiously scrolling through my FYP one night, searching up the hashtag #LanaDelRey. Everyone knows that hashtags are completely weird on TikTok, so you usually never look them up. I did that night and stumbled over Emily’s song ‘he loves me’. Wow. What a voice. What emotions this song gave me. How many shivers I got from her voice singing from my headphones.
Her new single ‘Love Lost’ is another song that’ll give you goosebumps. Full of love, full of feeling, And I am absolutely in love with it.
Last week, we met via Zoom and talked about her new song, how the process of writing it was and funnily finding out I follow her mix engineer simultaneously.
Here she is: Emily Yoke.

Bonnie Orbison: Introduce yourself a bit: Where you’re coming from, what you already released, …

Emily Yoke: Okay, so I’m Emily Yoke. I’m 22. I have been a singer songwriter forever. It started in sixth grade when I got my keyboard. And literally, ever since I got it, I was on YouTube, posting these awful, awful videos that are still there. Like covers and songs that I wrote. I was trained in piano for seven years, like all throughout middle school and high school. Then I went to college and I didn’t do as much music. Eventually, I got my first apartment with my best friend and I set up all the equipment and I really got back into it and wrote ‘he loves you’ which was my first single that I released in June. It’s just kinda taken off from there. So now I’ve really pivoted my focus to making and releasing music.

Bonnie: What is the title of your upcoming sale and when does it come out?

Emily: My upcoming single is called ‘Love Lost’. And it comes out on February 13.

Bonnie: I literally can’t wait! Describe ‘Love Last’ in three words.

Emily: I would say moody, unrequited, longing.

Bonnie: I love this. Why ‘Love Lost’? Does the title have a special meaning?

Emily: Honestly, no. I really, really struggled with the title because it was the name that stuck out most to me. Still my last single had the word love in it and I was like ‘Really? This is what we’re doing’. But it just made the most sense to me. It felt the most right. And so I was like ‘Okay, well then I guess we sing about love’.

Bonnie: I know this. I am a writer and I already published a breakup love novel and then I started to write my second novel two years ago and was like ‘Huh? Is this a love novel? Again? Is this my theme?’.

Emily: You know, I think you don’t get to choose your theme.

Bonnie: Yeah, absolutely. It’s choosing you. What inspired the track? What is the song about?

Emily: It’s about not going for something that your heart longs for because you don’t want to risk what you have with that person. Like about weighing your risks.

Bonnie: This sounds great! What did the process of making a song look like? And how long did it take?

Emily: This track was like a year in the making. I was really searching for it. I’m a Virgo perfectionist, so I was looking for the perfect next song to release. I had been working on this other song for months and I’d just redone and redone and redone every part. I guessed it was the one but it didn’t feel right yet. Meanwhile, I had two separate songs in my brain and both melodies were actually my two favorites I’ve ever written, and I had actually made TikToks of them, but months apart. One night, I was lying on the couch and I was like ‘Put them together!’. Then I just put the two songs together and basically the song was born. It was very fast after that. Within one night, it was completed. That’s pretty much it. It’s pretty quick once it happens.

Bonnie: Do you work on your own?

Emily: Yeah, I write everything myself. I produce everything myself. Then at the end, I send it to Shane Lance who mixes and masters my songs.

Bonnie: Is he also on TikTok? And does he post videos from his studio?

Emily: Yes. He talks about mixing. That’s so funny that we both know him. I love him. He does amazing, amazing work. I’m very thankful to work with him.

Bonnie: What is your favorite lyric line from ‘Love Lost’?

Emily: Oh I think it has to be: ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to hold you at arm’s length on a Saturday night.’ *sighs* Oh, that just breaks my heart. I don’t know why.

Bonnie: Yes, it’s very emotional. When the single comes out, where’s the perfect place to be listening to it for the first time?

Emily: Literally anywhere you listen to music, It’ll be out on all streaming platforms. You probably just want to be in a place where you can really allow yourself to feel the song and its emotions coming up for you.

Bonnie: I’ll be sitting here on my couch with my disco ball hanging over there.

Emily: Yes, get as dramatic as possible.

Bonnie: Is there a music video to it?

Emily: There will be a lyric video on YouTube, but it won’t be like a full music video.

Bonnie: I love lyric videos. They are so good.

Emily: That’s why I picked it. Yeah, I wanted to have one.

Bonnie: Any honorable mentions you want to make?

Emily: I definitely wanna thank my family and my friends. Definitely as well the community on TikTok because every time I post something, there’s at least one person who confirms to me that I do what I’m meant to be doing. That’s just the ultimate form of motivation. That’s a really, really good feeling.

Bonnie: If you’d have to put the song on a playlist with five other songs, which would they be?