There’s a special kind of love in wanting the best for someone else, even if that means letting them go. Briston Maroney’s newest single, “Even If You Are Not Mine,” pinpoints the weight of feeling like you’re holding someone else back with personal burdens. The revealed antidote to this is to say the taboo: “And if you get the chance to leave, get out and take it.”
Coming off of a cathartic and authentic album release in 2025 with JIMMY, Maroney wastes no time dissecting another delicate life experience with a camp-fire anthem the singer-songwriter way. “Even If You Are Not Mine” feels like it would come on the radio during a spontaneous road trip, sending the car into silence and deep thought. With hard-hitting, thought-provoking lyrics like, “I’m not scared of being far from home / Just scares me that my only home is you” and “You look at me like some sort of stranger / Well, I’ve always felt much stranger in my head,” who wouldn’t be sent into a spiral of questioning your own intentions, perceptions, and, as a matter of fact, everything about yourself?
In order to write this song, it seems as if Maroney had to climb outside of his body and observe his own self from an outside perspective. As if that visual hadn’t already manifested itself in the lyrics, Maroney brought this concept to life in a music video featuring a human-sized Briston observing a miniature Briston inside a room. Peering into his own life with a curious eye, revelations were discovered which led to decisions to be made.
Although the person you love may serve as a “home,” the guilt of keeping them at your side seems to be eating away at you. “And I’d love you even if you were not mine” is the crux of it all, the revelation Maroney had while observing himself. And the decision is, well, to let them go, but also to make sure they know that if they decide to return, the door will always be open.
“Even If You Are Not Mine” will be followed by Briston Maroney’s four-track EP, Normal Heights, out Sept. 18.
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