If my social media posts and forensically-targeted internet ads have done their job, you might’ve picked up that the next of this summer’s singles—Day by Day—is going live on Friday.

It’s the second musical chapter in what I hope will eventually represent the story of my early thirties: a collection of songs that’ll coalesce into a shimmering debut album called Stars, set to arrive in all its celestial glory this autumn—for streaming, or even owning on picturesque vinyl.

By then, I’m hoping you’ll be able to lie back, adjust your eyes to the night sky, and take in the full cosmic drama of it all.

In the meantime, as the songs arrive one by one—some more explicitly autobiographical than others—I might need to help fill in a few of the gaps.

As usual, I’m not especially keen on explaining what something means.

As Roland Barthes told in 1967, the author is dead once the ink leaves his pen.

A bit like Schrödinger’s cat—or a quantum particle stuck in uncertainty—a new song is neither alive nor dead until it’s been released.

It means both everything and nothing until someone’s there to hear it and decide what it means to them.

What I can tell you is that when I wrote this one, I’d just taken some fairly dramatic, life-altering decisions (in the safest, most middle-class way possible).

I’d:

a) Broken up with the love of my life, thanks to an impending sense of doom I couldn’t quite verbalise.

b) Spent thousands of pounds self-funding a demanding legal degree that I managed to pass, then decided never to use.

c) Quit my job as Head of English at one of the best secondary schools in the country.

I’d also discovered a few radical new truths:

1. That marijuana is more fun than alcohol, and doesn’t come with a hangover.
2. That life as we know it can grind to a halt at any moment—especially if certain Chinese laboratories aren’t secured properly.
3. That even the most competent, qualified adults are mostly just making it up as they go along.

I think this song is some kind of cocktail of all that.

I named the album Stars because the songs felt like refracted versions of the me who’d taken a plunge into the metaphorical darkness.

All the usual waylights we rely on to guide us to a successful ‘grown-up’ landing had gone out by around 2022.

No girlfriend, no real job, no real prospect of any tangible success.

But the whole thing felt bizarrely, radically liberating.

Now, don’t get me wrong—it doesn't always feel like that.

Despite its sublime beauty and infinite scale, the night sky can also be overwhelming, disorientating, and make you feel very small.

But Day by Day was definitely a tune I wrote on one of those good days.

One of those days where I really felt like I was on the verge of something.

I’ll be honest—I think I might be the sort of person who lives their life on the verge.

Which may or may not be a good thing.

But hopefully, you’ll enjoy standing there with me, on the verge, for a few minutes on Friday when the song goes live.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing an exclusive early look at the video with you—a little thank-you for sticking around, and a sneak preview of the version that’ll be going out into the world at the end of the week.

Until then, thanks for staying tuned.

And keep dreaming.

More soon,

Rob