At 25 years old, pop/rock singer Rachel Lorin has already enjoyed a full and varied career. The Atlanta native began working professionally at nine years old, as a model – but she soon delved into a music career in New York City, gaining attention for singing the national anthem at the U.S. Open when she was 12 years old. From there, she joined the cast of the reality show Next Big Thing. Now, she’s showing her maturity and experience as an artist with her latest single, “Obsessed,” which premieres here at American Songwriter on August 27 (with the official release across all platforms on August 28).
“The writing and recording process went very deep for me,” Lorin says of “Obsessed.” “It was my first time writing a love song about an actual someone, when usually [before] they’d been breakup songs or just fantasies in my head.” But, she admits, there had been a point where “I gave up on love and became a bit angry and bitter. Yes, I’m guilty. Aren’t we all at some a point?
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“Well, thankfully I realized pretty soon it didn’t have to be that way,” Lorin continues. “I would say for the first time of my life, I fell in love a year and a half ago. It’s a different feeling entirely, very intoxicating and very addicting. We became pretty batshit crazy obsessed with one another unbelievably fast and spent all hours of the night on the phone talking about our lives and dreams and telling stories just like kids. Long story short, we fell mad for each other and started our journey. We quickly became that couple sitting in a restaurant that makes everyone nauseous because we can’t stop showing our affection.”
Lorin decided to turn this experience into a song. “I let it ride out for a bit before I told Rob [Endling] and Curtis [Martin], my producers and co-writers, it was time for a modern love song from me,” she says. “It was time for me to get out of the bitter barn and play in the hay, as they say. I was beyond happy and I wanted to let the world know what it actually feels like for me to love someone that openly and deeply.”
Lorin, Endling and Martin wrote the song at Studio 77 in Las Vegas, “which really is the most dreadful city for singers since it’s such a dry place, being in the middle of the desert,” Lorin says, “but it is always a nice escape for me since I’ll work pretty much anywhere if given the chance.”
Despite this rather challenging setting, Lorin says, writing “Obsessed” was “the fastest and it was quite simple” compared to much of their usual songwriting. “I think it only took one day, if I remember. I was a girl who fell in love so the lyrics spilled right out of me on an empty canvass. Sometimes the way you actually feel doesn’t need correcting or editing, and it felt pretty elating to just lay my heart on the table.”
While other songs were written for Lorin’s upcoming album during these sessions, she says that “Obsessed” holds a particularly special place in her heart – not only because of its subject matter, but for another personal reason, as well: “It is also one of the songs that was finished before my father passed away and he got the chance to hear it and absolutely loved it,” she says. “He was impatiently waiting for me to release it.”
Now that the release date for “Obsessed” is finally here, Lorin hopes that other listeners will also see its worth. “I really hope my audience and those who listen embrace this song and love it as much as I do,” she says. “It’s scary to be an artist as it always opens you up to critics and opinions, but I can only be myself and be genuine, and I had no choice but to express my purity with this one. I’m truly excited to release this baby of mine. It really is a special song to me for many reasons. I hold “Obsessed” near and dear to my heart because it’s truer than true.”