I met Madeline Merlo at the 2024 CMT Next Women of Country event in Nashville in January. As is the norm, the women perform an acoustic set, and I specifically remember Merlo’s introspective song, “Make Up.”
The words “Do I hate my body ’cause my mother hated hers?/ Bet I can’t control my temper ’cause my daddy never learned/ Could I make love last forever? My parents never could/ Will I ever know the difference between good enough and good?/ Can you change the way you’re made up?/ If you scrub it hard enough, can you ever wash off what’s in your makeup?/ What’s in your makeup?” resonated with me deeply as it explored the emotional feeling of not having to accept everything handed down to us by our parents.
When she released her latest single, a melodic duet with Dustin Lynch, “Broken Heart Thing,” in August, I contacted her team to see if I could arrange an interview.
Merlo is from Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada. She comes from a musical family with multiple family members who can play and sing. She learned to play guitar at an early age.
Maple Ridge, BC, is a small blueberry farming town where Merlo grew up riding horses and listening to country music. She sang wherever and whenever possible and was in her kindergarten talent show at age six. She continued in musical theater, doing commercials and performing whenever she could.
“My mom drove me all over the place to help me with the dream,” she recalled.
By age 17, Merlo signed a record deal and started touring extensively throughout Canada. She was nominated for the Canadian Country Music Awards and heard herself on the radio. But it was the songwriting that indeed held Merlo’s heart.
“I had traveled to Nashville a few times to write music and completely fell in love,” she surmised.
Her first album, Free Soul, was released in 2016 and contained songs she had written as a 16- and 17-year-old. She deems some of those original tunes “cringeworthy” now.
But since relocating to Nashville, Merlo has been laser-focused on songwriting. She has been in the room with true professionals who have helped her hone her craft.
She explained, “I think the magical thing about Nashville is that people are open and willing to write with new artists and people that don’t have much going on. I moved to Nashville without knowing anyone. I didn’t have any friends. My family was so far away, and I felt like the community was so sweet and had a few songwriters put me under their wing. And you just start building one on top of another.”
It was also crucial for Merlo to get a publishing deal because she needed a job to keep her visa. It provided extra incentives to succeed.
In 2019, Merlo released the female empowerment song “Dear Me,” in which she reminds us not to forget that “you’re a total babe.” In 2020, she brought us her biggest hit song to date, “It Didn’t,” a post-breakup song that showed us how to pick ourselves off the ground and get on with life. The words, “I thought it would kill me, but it didn’t,” are an excellent reminder to us all.
She stated that the song, “’It Didn’t’ was written during a hard period of my life when I was really struggling with my mental health and where I was. I wrote it from the perspective of one day being in a better place at the end of the tunnel and how much fun this party will be when I get there.”
In 2020, Merlo received a call to appear on NBC’s Songland, where she worked with Nashville mega-songwriter Shane McAnally. They wrote the song “Champagne Night” for Lady A, and the now Platinum-certified single spent three weeks at number one. It also earned the songstress the CCMA Songwriter of the Year award in 2021.
Ahead of her newest project, One House Down (from the girl next door), Merlo released a melodic duet with 9X #1 hitmaker Dustin Lynch, “Broken Heart Thing,” which, to both their credits, has been a smashing success.
The song offers a first peek into her in her new EP and explores both sides of a recent heartbreak and how they’re both still getting used to the relationship falling apart. The melancholy melody creates a storyline that perfectly complements the vulnerable moments captured on this relatable journey.
Merlo calls One House Down (from the girl next door) EP her most emotionally insightful project yet – a six-song message of self-worth that comes with a superstar boost and plays to her creative strength. Representing a “sonic elevation” of heart-pounding modern country and breathtaking, beam-of-light vocals – both tender and untamed at the same time –the set was produced by progressive-minded hitmaker Zach Crowell (Sam Hunt, Luke Bryan, Dustin Lynch) and came into focus with the title track – “One House Down (from the girl next door),” backed by guitar melodies from none other than Keith Urban.
“When I wrote that song, it felt so representative of me and my whole life,” she says. “I always felt like I was one house down from people with perfect lives and perfect families. And I know that’s not true, but that otherness and not feeling good enough has impacted me differently. One of them was through love – I feel like I’ve always stumbled my way through it.”
Two can’t-miss songs from the EP include the reflective “Bar Fight,” which states, “I don’t know what to do, cause my heart and my mind are in a bar fight over you,” and the previously released cinematic “Same Car,” which is about the “same front seat where I fell for you… is the same four wheels where you broke my heart…”
Other songs rounding out the EP include the getting-over-you song “Middle of Bed” and the honest anthem “Good Grief,” which explores the cycle of an ending relationship.
While she is an award-winning songwriter, there is nothing more exciting for a rising artist than making their Opry Debut. Earlier this year, she took a facility tour and sang for the staff. Merlo will be making her Opry Debut on October 16, 2024.
She said, “I don’t know I’ve ever felt that way about a building. It’s extraordinary. There is so much emotion to it. I got choked up just walking around. There is so much history there.”
But if anyone deserves the Opry stage, it is Merlo. She is an artist in the truest sense, writing songs that paint a vivid picture of cherished memories. Her messages are clear and relevant as you feel what she is feeling. And that is what great songwriting is all about. It’s about creating music that means something. The fact that Merlo has a beautiful, melodious voice is just icing on the cake.
You can follow Merlo on her website, Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, and all streaming platforms.
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Bethany Bowman is a freelance entertainment writer. You can follow her blog, Facebook, Instagram, and X.
