Athlone songwriter releases new single about 'missed calls and unread texts'
Ellen O'Meara, a talented singer-songwriter originally from Mount Temple, has today (Friday) released her latest single, entitled Missed Calls and Unread Texts.
This is the fourth single released by folk-indie singer Ellen, and follows her successful songs, Body Issues, Stuck, and Start Again.
Centred around her experiences with ADHD and mental illness, her new song is available now on steaming platforms.
“I wrote [Missed Calls and Unread Texts] two years ago, while I was in university and overwhelmed,” Ellen explained.
“It was during the latter stages of Covid, so I think everyone was overwhelmed. But this song was actually only produced three months ago, so I'm in a very different headspace – thankfully! - to when I wrote the song.”
Ellen boasts over 15,000 TikTok followers and over 192,000 likes on videos of her singing, which she started posting during the pandemic.
She said that her TikTok popularity has been a “huge leap in terms of getting people to see my stuff.”
“TikTok is kind of random, one video can just blow up, and you get a broader range of people listening, I can see on my Spotify that I have a lot of listeners from America.
“Momentum is so important. When you have it you have to keep it going. I need to amp up the rate of releasing songs.”
Ellen also has plans closer to home, however. Her brother Jack, who is the co-founder and CEO of biotechnology company Ochre Bio in Oxford, is planning to organise a music festival in Athlone next April.
“It's mad!” Ellen laughed. “It's pretty exciting, but there's a lot of work to do yet. He's just got a committee formed.
“They want to put the Midlands on the music map. And there's loads of really good venues in Athlone for a festival.”
Also upcoming for Ellen is the release of a song she wrote and performed for Palestine, seeking to raise money for charity.
She first sang the song at a large protest against Eurovision outside the RTÉ campus in Dublin on May 2.
The protest was organised by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC). Her song has been recorded, produced, and a music video has been filmed, with the song due to be released in the next month or so.