Blair Davie’s new EP, You Like Ugly, Don’t You Babe?, finds the Scottish singer-songwriter embracing the complicated realities of love, identity and self-discovery. Released today via Giant Music, the five-track project sees Blair explore these themes through a sound that feels more rhythm-led and expansive than their previous work, while retaining the emotional honesty that has become a defining part of their songwriting.
Across the EP, Blair moves between moments of intimacy and bigger, more soaring compositions, with each track offering a different perspective on love, connection and personal growth. There’s a sense of reflection throughout, but the songs never feel weighed down by it. Instead, Blair approaches their experiences with an openness that allows the music to feel both personal and relatable.
When You Fall In Love opens the project by exploring the transformative nature of connection and the ways our past can shape who we become. The title track, You Like Ugly, Don’t You Babe?, shifts into a more indie-tinged sound, with its infectious chorus giving the song a sense of release. So What? brings a brighter energy, capturing the impulsiveness of choosing love even when walking away might seem like the easier option.
The heartfelt You Must Be A Miracle slows the pace, placing Blair’s soulful vocal front and centre, before Alive Because Of You closes the EP with a gradual build towards something more powerful and expansive.
For 1883 Magazine, Blair has penned a track-by-track diary, delving into each song on the project and the stories, emotions and experiences behind them.
‘When You Fall In Love’
This was the first track I wrote for the EP, I’m not sure I even knew I was writing this EP at that point but it coincidentally began the story I was destined to write for the project. The idea of going from being broken and lost to be being healed and saved by love. I wrote it as a letter to the version of myself that didn’t believe that love would ever find me again, telling myself to hold onto hope.
‘You Like Ugly, Don’t You Babe?’
I think this song wouldn’t have come if I hadn’t gone to Los Angeles to write. A year before I met my partner I’d been through a terrible trauma and when we met the scars from that were still so open. The song is about that moment when I had to offload my baggage into the arms of basically a stranger and hope that I’d be accepted and loved despite of all it. I believe that I needed to be geographically so far from the memory of that time to be able to write the song.
‘So What?’
The most upbeat, fun song of the EP. It’s the song where you start realising that you just need to throw yourself into love sometimes, even when your inner monologue is screaming at you to run away. It was the song I was most scared about going into the studio because it’s definitely on the poppier side of my world but I decided to lean into that and just have a blast making it. It was joyous!
‘You Must Be A Miracle’
The EP was already written and produced when this song arrived. I realised that I was missing one message in this collection of songs, one that just says “thank you” to the person that loved me when I was at my lowest, who held me when I was in my darkest moments. We rushed back to the studio to record it and it ended up being my favourite track of this EP.
‘Alive Cause Of You’
I wrote this song on a writing camp in Wales and it felt so special at the time but for whatever reason I actually forgot about it for a while. There was a show out in Germany where I needed to play for an hour which is a bit longer than I was used to at the time so I rediscovered it by trialling it out in the set. It felt so magical playing it live that I realised I needed it to be part of this EP. I think it really sums up the story of the project – the opening verse and chorus come from this dark place and by the end it’s joy and gratitude.
Blair Davie’s You Like Ugly, Don’t You Babe? is out today.
