A York singer-songwriter was asked to apply for Channel 4’s new show after hearing her original song – and now The Cure can be heard by everyone.
Maggie Wakeling, a 21-year old singer-songwriter from York, gave an emotional performance on Channel 4’s new show Your Song.
From the makers of Great British Bake Off and The Piano, Your Song aims to celebrate the nation’s hidden voices by giving non-professional singers the chance to perform a song that holds deep personal meaning to them.
Maggie performed her self-composed song The Cure, inspired by her grandad’s diagnosis with dementia.
The show features TV icon Alison Hammond as host, and renowned singers Paloma Faith and Sam Ryder as ‘hidden’ judges.
Maggie took part in the London heat of the show, with Sam reacting with “Wow!” to the performance, and Paloma commenting that she “loves the lyrics – I think her voice is also quite flawless.”
And The Cure is now out to stream! Released on Friday 22 May, this will be Maggie’s (who releases music under the stage name Maggie Mae) first single in five years. Stream The Cure on Spotify, YouTube, Tidal, and Apple Music.
Alongside releasing music and performing, Maggie is also currently finishing her Songwriting degree at LIPA (Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts).
YorkMix chatted with Maggie to find out more about her experience on the show, what the reaction has been like, and what’s coming next.
Keep up to date with Maggie at her Instagram page here.
Q&A with Maggie Wakeling
How did you first get into Songwriting?
I’ve been writing since I was about 12 or 13, and I did actually release a couple of songs back in 2018 and then I released another single in 2021. But I’ve developed a lot as an artist since releasing those singles and then with releasing The Cure, I have really developed as an artist.
I’ve always written as a way of escaping, or as a way of getting all my feelings out there into the world, which I think you can tell in a lot of my music, especially The Cure, with it being quite a personal song.
So I think the only thing that’s really changed is just I know my sound a lot better. I start on piano because I play keys, and then I translate it into the full band setting or a fully produced track.
The Cure is a very personal song – what is it about?
When I wrote the song, it was 2024/2025, my granddad was being diagnosed with dementia, and, I speak about it on the show, that the song is about so much more than that.
It’s about feelings, about losing your identity or not recognising parts of yourself anymore. And I think that is something a lot of people can relate to, regardless of whether they’ve also had experience with dementia or not, and I think it’s a very relatable feeling to find that you’ve lost a bit of yourself.
There’s a lyric in the song which says, ‘Tell me I’m more than the pieces I miss’, which is my favourite lyric in the whole song. I think it really sums up my feelings when I was writing it, and that there’s still a bit of hope, and still strength there.
How did you find out about Your Song?
The first thing I saw about the show was just a really discreet Facebook advert, saying ‘if you enjoy singing and you have a song that means something to you, you should apply’. I was in the middle of a lot of uni work, so I was putting it off, and my mum kept sending it to me, saying, I really think you should do this.
Then in my university town, there’s an arts bar which hosts lots of music events, and they were hosting an open mic where the producers of the show were going to be in attendance. So I thought I might as well just go along see what happens – if nothing comes of it, I still got to perform the song at an open mic.
I sang The Cure, and I was asked from that to apply for the show. So I did a couple of auditions after that, and then they asked me to go down to London to film.
What was your experience like on the show?
It was honestly so amazing. Meeting Alison Hammond was just incredible. She’s exactly how you expect her to be, exactly like she is on TV. She’s such a lovely person.
Then to have Paloma [Faith] and Sam [Ryder] say such lovely things about the song as well – which I didn’t know until I watched the episode back – it really meant a lot to me, because I put a lot of my heart into my songwriting.
It was a bit daunting knowing that I was singing an original song and knowing that there was going to be, not only people watching at home, but also these two amazing songwriters and artists watching as well. It was quite intimidating at first, but the whole team was really lovely, and I did feel really, really comfortable, and I was so happy when I watched it back with the outcome.
What has been the reaction from your friends and family?
My family have always been my biggest supporters, ever since I was young. They’ve always been front row supporting me in anything that I want to do. I don’t think I would be doing music if it wasn’t for them.
My parents are quite musical already, my dad plays a couple of instruments and my mum used to sing as well. So there’s always been that musical influence within the family.
They’ve been really, really supportive, and they’re always pushing me to do my best and just to be happy as well, which is really nice.
It’s had an amazing reaction from people all over the world too – what’s that like?
It’s honestly been really lovely. What I wanted from the show was just for my music to be heard and to be able to connect with other people from it.
I’ve always wanted my music to be able to reach people emotionally and to make that connection, because when I listen to music, that’s my favourite thing; I like to be able to relate it to my own experiences.
I’ve had a number of people reach out and say that they’ve either been in a similar situation to mine, or just really enjoyed the song and that it moved them – so it’s been really nice to see that, because that’s all I could ask for really.
How would you describe your music to someone who might not have come across your work before?
The Cure is quite a powerful ballad song. It’s really driven by the emotion behind it and the storytelling in the lyrics, and then it’s like a pop ballad, similar to Freya Ridings. The rest of my music that I’m writing is in that very similar genre – pop or alternative pop . They’re always very emotionally driven, but some of them have a much more funky beat to them.
What’s next?
Hopefully, after The Cure, we’ll be releasing a couple more singles, and then at some point this year, there will be an EP.
I’m hoping to play some more shows in York and around Yorkshire as well when I come back from university in the summer.
What’s your biggest ambition?
I would love to play the O2 in Manchester, or the Co-op Live – that would be a dream to sell that out, but that’s a few years away.
I would just really love to play some shows in York and have lots of people come down and support the music.
And I would love to reach 1000 streams on The Cure!
