Today, Canadian musician Leah Martel releases her debut single, ‘Everybody Out’, a fun genre-blurring song about social anxiety. While the song starts out in a mellow singer-songwriter style, it quickly morphs into an alt-pop/indie rock sound, with an ending that leans into some alt rock vibes. There’s a humour and relatability to the song that really adds to its appeal.

She says of her debut single, “I wrote ‘Everybody Out’ at a point in my life when my social anxiety was really at its peak. The thing is, I figured it would have been its worst as a kid in elementary school getting picked on and not, embarrassingly, as a 20something just trying to attend a party of some very nice seeming people from my college program. I had already been out in the working world for a while and thought I was over it and had gained a bit more confidence and social skills but I realized I really just hadn’t been in a group of new people in a while and once that happened I may as well have been 13 again. If I said something I felt like an alien trying to pretend to have a human conversation. If I stayed silent I felt like an awkward weirdo just hovering around. And I had no clue what to do with my hands or where to sit or stand without either intruding or looking to closed off. So, instead of trying to communicate through it or rise to the occasion in any way, I ran out early and wrote this little melody on the way home in my car (well, after stopping at the side of the road to have a minor panic attack first).

“The funny thing is, I really wanted to be friends with these people and there was nothing actually standing in my way except me just not knowing how to be normal in any capacity. So when I finally sat down to write out all the lyrics I wanted to really emphasize the contradictory nature of this kind of anxiety where it has you running for the hills to get away from everyone but only because you so desperately want to connect with people and care far too much about every minor interaction just hoping it will be good. Then you convince yourself it’s all gone horribly wrong when you’re probably the only one even thinking that. It’s so silly, you know? So I wanted the song to kind of poke fun at the ironic nature of that feeling while also containing that frantic, on-the-brink-of-a-panic-attack energy.”