After All

Release date: Jul 24, 2026

Genre: Indie Pop

Label: S-Curve Records

“Finch Song” has birds, lavender, irritated neighbors, relationship anxiety and a very necessary reminder to wear sunblock. I support all of it. Yes.

Released on July 24 through S-Curve Records, the song is the first single from Ryley Tate’s debut EP, Hurry, I’m Gone, arriving September 25. Tate says the idea began as a poem while he was walking through downtown Boston in the spring and watching the birds return after months of gray weather.

Tate compares himself to a finch that follows the wind wherever it goes. At first, that makes him sound restless and easily distracted. Then the chorus flips the idea. When the wind becomes strong enough to blur his vision, he promises to bend his wings and fight the current to return to the person he loves. He begins as a bird controlled by the weather and ends as one choosing where home is.

The first verse is my favorite because the romance comes with an argument about sunscreen. He watches this person lying in the sun, knows they will be burned by dinner and fully plans to say, “I told you so.” Then he admits that sunblock probably would have prevented his own bad behavior. This is such a fun way to write a relationship. They annoy each other lol; The garden metaphor in the second verse adds another side to it. His partner is somebody who keeps growing above the dirt, waiting for rain to bring the flowers out. He promises to tend the garden and pull the weeds because he cannot stand the idea of them becoming estranged. The whole song is built around caring for something living.

I hear Gracie Abrams, HAIM, Bleachers and Holly Humberstone in their best way possible. Very adorable. Slightly codependent. Stream it