Talia Rae celebrates an overlooked love story on “Julia”

At a time when popular music feels overwhelmingly preoccupied with romantic relationships, Talia Rae’s “Julia” arrives with a different emotional focus. Rae's latest single, and title track of her new EP, centres on the often-overlooked relationship between a parent and child. More specifically, it tells that story through the imagined perspective of her own father.

For Rae, the decision was partly born from a desire to escape the limitations of more autobiographical songwriting. “I thought it was a more interesting spin on it from a songwriting perspective,” she explains. “I feel like a lot of people usually write about themselves and I kind of wanted to have a different perspective on it.” That narrative approach becomes the track’s defining strength. Rather than simply documenting her own feelings, Rae attempts to inhabit someone else’s emotional world, imagining the anxieties and protective instincts that accompany fatherhood. In doing so, she transforms the track from what would’ve been a straightforward tribute into an exercise in empathy.

Across its warm, understated production, Rae captures the quieter defining moments within family relationships. Built around gentle instrumentation and rich vocal delivery, she found herself returning to artists including Tom Odell and Coldplay whilst writing the track, with broader influences spanning an eclectic range of artists from Radiohead to Paolo Nutini to Amy Winehouse.

One of the track’s lyrics, “let me know when you get home tonight,” stems directly from her own experiences with her father. “Whenever I’d go out with my friends and come home on the Tube at night, he’d always say, ‘Text me when you get home. Let me know when you’re home safely,’” she recalls. “That’s where that lyric comes from.”

The track arrives as part of Rae’s most personal body of work to date. Across the wider EP, family relationships repeatedly take centre stage, from the father-daughter dynamic on “Julia” to the maternal perspective of “If I Were Your Mother”.

“People don’t really look at their parents and think of it as a love story,” she says. “I wanted to shine a light on how beautiful parent and child relationships can be.” Diaristic lyricism and soul-fuelled elements have become defining features of Rae’s songwriting, as the artist steadily builds a reputation for exploring such universally relatable themes within the context of deeply personal experiences.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the accompanying visual for “Julia,” which was filmed during a day spent watching Arsenal play with her father, with the video documenting a longtime tradition that has played a key part in their relationship. “We always went to the football,” Rae explains. “It was our thing. It was our bonding thing.” With the footage captured by Rae’s boyfriend and intentionally stripped of elaborate production, it mirrors the honesty at the centre of the song itself. “I didn’t want anyone involved where it felt like a big production,” she says. “I just wanted it to feel as real and authentic as possible.”

More than a simple ode to her father, “Julia” stands as a reminder that some of the most significant love stories in our lives aren’t romantic at all. Sometimes they’re found in late-night texts, football matches, and the people who have been there from the very beginning.