Christina Perri has a knack for writing songs that hit like a sucker punch in the ribs. “Jar of Hearts” was built on devastation, “A Thousand Years” became the soundtrack for teen-vampire love, and now her latest single, “Evergone,” arrives from the deepest well of grief she’s ever known: the loss of her daughter Rosie.
“I was finished with my third album,” she told Kyle Meredith. “I didn’t even have ‘Evergone’ yet. And then I lost my daughter. I remember thinking, maybe I don’t even put out this album. When you’re grieving that hard, you can’t picture the future.”
What cracked open the darkness was a fragment of a song sent to her by her longtime A&R rep, Pete Ganbarg. “He’s never done that in 11 years,” she said. “He came to me so delicately — just a piece of a song he thought I should hear. And I realized I couldn’t move forward without including this experience. It had to be the first thing I sang about.”
So she finished “Evergone” with her producer Jen DeSilvio. It wasn’t just a song, it was survival. “It felt like, oh, I can do this. I can heal and work at the same time if I’m honoring Rosie.”
Perri has become an unlikely evangelist for normalizing grief. “I thought it would be hard to talk about,” she said. “But it turns out it’s harder not to. Every time I talk about it, it’s more medicine. It’s healing.” She laughs a little at her own brutal honesty: “Are we crying? Okay, I’m doing this right.”
The lyrics to “Evergone” are plainspoken and devastating. “I learned to live with a heartache,” she sings, a line that reads like a dagger. “I wasn’t trying to be unique,” she said. “I just wrote exactly how it felt. Like hearing someone say her name. When we lose someone, their name forever just hits different. I’d never heard that in a song before.”
Even through the pain, she clings to her songwriter instincts. “Honestly, the best part of songwriting is when it still hurts,” she explained. “That’s the sweet spot. Every line has to hurt a little. Otherwise it’s not deep enough.”
This new era comes after two lullaby albums and nearly a decade since her last full studio set. Motherhood and marriage have shifted her perspective, but not her compulsion. “I thought, oh I’m going to do family now,” she said. “Then I realized, oh shit, I’m a songwriter — I’m going to write about all of it anyway.”
Helping her along was an unlikely ally: Taylor Swift. “I could only listen to her when I was in my deepest, saddest season,” Perri admitted. “When folklore came out, I felt like she made it for me. I did Legos and listened to it over and over. She gave me permission not to make happy music. Like, a nice melancholy album is okay.”
Her playlists reveal the same leanings: Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker, Brandi Carlile, Cleo Sol. “I crushed it,” she laughed. “I still play it in the car. It’s either that or Disney music.” She’s proud — self-described as a “Disney adult” who blasted “Kiss the Girl” until she broke down and recorded her own cover.
And then there’s “A Thousand Years,” the billion-stream behemoth that refuses to die. She recently received a plaque — her young daughter Carmella immediately tried to use it as a dinner plate. “She’s so smart,” Perri said. “She’s like, oh cool, a plate. A billion streams and it’s just a plate to her.”
The Twilight association doesn’t embarrass her, either. “I am their representative,” she said proudly. “I’ll never pretend I’m cooler than I am. I had the four book covers framed on my wall. I’ll always be grateful. It changed my life.”
That’s Christina Perri in 2022: still melancholy, still unflinchingly honest, still sneaking Disney playlists between Phoebe Bridgers tracks. And, with “Evergone,” still writing the songs that pull her through the worst of it.
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
