After writing chart-topping songs for other artists, Maine singer-songwriter Amy Allen is trying for one of her own.
Allen, who grew up in Windham and South Portland, will make her major-label debut as a singer Wednesday when Warner Records is scheduled to release her song “Queen of Silver Linings” nationwide. It’s the first single off Allen’s debut album, which will be released at a later date.
Allen was signed as a performer by Warner Records last year after co-writing several pop radio hits for other artists. Allen co-wrote the song “Without Me” by Halsey, which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 pop music chart in early 2019. She also co-wrote the radio hit “Back to You” by Selena Gomez, which was on the soundtrack of the Netflix series “13 Reasons Why,” and was a writer on the Shawn Mendes song “When You’re Ready.”
Allen, a 2010 graduate of Waynflete School in Portland, played on her own and in a band before moving to Los Angeles a few years ago to work as a songwriter. Allen said Thursday in a text message to the Press Herald that she feels all her past musical experience came together on this album.
“I think it took me years of playing in a band and writing for others to find my own voice and be able to tell my stories exactly the way I wanted to,” Allen wrote.
Allen said the song “Queen of Silver Linings” is a window into her life over the past year, including balancing her work in music and her personal life.
“Something I’ve struggled with as long as I can remember is wanting to follow my own dream and feel completely free and independent while simultaneously falling in and out of love and trying to hold onto it even when my life is moving in the opposite direction,” Allen wrote. “Queen is the story of that silent fight that I think most women in my generation and every generation before us have been fighting.”
She said she felt “incredibly grateful” to be releasing the song and hopes it will be as cathartic for people to listen to as it was for her to write. She wrote the song with her friend Dan Wilson, of the band Semisonic. She said it was “the most raw and stripped down song on the album.”
A release date for the album has not been announced yet, according to Warner Records. In an interview with Variety published Wednesday, Warner Records’ chief executive officer and co-chairman Aaron Bay-Schuck had high praise for Allen’s song.
“I think artists could spend their entire career trying to write a song as good as Amy Allen’s ‘Queen of Silver Linings,’ ” he said in the interview. “Every melody is memorable and addictive. Every lyric is important. Every line keeps you in suspense while you wait with anticipation for what the next line will be. And when the payoff and resolve of the chorus hits, there’s nothing left to feel except the hair raising on your arms because it’s just so good and powerful. It leaves you breathless.”
Allen is scheduled to perform as part of a virtual Maine-based Fourth of July concert event called SummerFestME, July 3 and 4. The exact time of Allen’s performance has not been announced but a schedule will be posted before the event at the SummerFestME website.
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