Amelia Coburn has released ‘Metamorphosis’, a song about waking up after major surgery and feeling like a stranger in her own body. The north-east folk songwriter borrowed her title from Franz Kafka’s novella and wears a handmade insect costume in the video. The single came out on 13th November and is the second from Myself and Other Monsters.
In Kafka’s story, Gregor Samsa wakes to find he has turned into an insect. Amelia imagined the operation as a public dissection, with a paying audience watching her on the table. The slow tread of a Tom Waits song gave her a way to play the scene.
More on Amelia Coburn
“My stage was the operating theatre, my body was the spectacle, and I was the unwilling starlet,” Amelia says. She hopes the song speaks to people who have felt estranged from their own bodies.
A second album and a return to the Elgar Room
Myself and Other Monsters arrives on 5th March 2027. Bill Ryder-Jones returns as producer after working on Amelia’s debut, Between the Moon and the Milkman. Paul Weller guests on ‘Adeline’. ‘Adeline’ appears on the first side of the vinyl, while ‘Metamorphosis’ follows the lead single on the second.
Amelia introduced the record with ‘I Just Want To Say’, a love letter to a serial killer written from the perspective of an unreliable narrator. ‘Metamorphosis’ draws more directly on her life. She says the album also makes room for ghosts and people made to feel monstrous by others.
Amelia has three full-band headline shows in December. She plays Leeds’ Brudenell Social Club on 3rd December, Manchester’s YES Pink Room on 4th December and Sage 2 at The Glasshouse in Gateshead on 5th December. Her solo tour starts at Òran Mór in Glasgow on 28th January as part of Celtic Connections.
On 5th March, Amelia returns to the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room for an album launch show. She previously sold out the room, and this time the show falls on the day the album comes out. She begins a run of record-shop appearances the next day, at Rough Trade Denmark Street in London on 6th March.
Stream ‘Metamorphosis’, pre-order Myself and Other Monsters or check Amelia’s tour dates.
Tap Share, then Add to Home Screen.