Lindsay Ell Speaks Out About Her Rape in Empowering ‘make you’
This powerful anthem is made to help others.
Lindsay Ell takes a bold step into truth with her new track, “make you,” admitting publicly for the first time that she was sexually abused, and standing up for other victims of the same trauma.
Co-written with Brandy Clark, the transformative anthem finds Ell opening old wounds to explore the impact of her rape at 13 years old. Heartbreaking and tender, yet also empowering, supportive and filled with inner strength, she lays out the hurdles other young girls and boys will face in powerful honesty. It’s part of Ell’s upcoming heart theory album, which tracks the seven stages of her own grief, with “make you” representing the final stage, acceptance. And she says after meeting other young survivors of sexual violence, she couldn’t stay silent any longer.
“Three years ago at a visit to help launch the music program at Youth For Tomorrow, I sat down in a conference room with a few girls aged 12-18 who had all been victims of rape or sex trafficking,” she explains. “I shared my story, they shared their stories, and I was so inspired. Walking out of that room that day I knew the time had come to share my story more widely, otherwise I would be denying myself an opportunity to connect and help other girls or boys, like those in that room. It’s a very difficult thing to do, but an incredibly necessary thing to talk about. We don’t realize how much this stuff is happening in our own community, and that is partly due to not discussing it.”
With such a delicate and deeply personal theme to express, Ell turned to a hit maker she calls a “an absolute wordsmith and songwriter genius” to flesh the song out. And what she and Clark came up with is both tragic and ultimately, beautiful. Ell chose to release it on Global Forgiveness Day (July 7) in a move toward true healing — not only finding a way to forgive those who do us wrong, but also ourselves.
“The day we wrote ‘make you’ I knew we had written something special that will hopefully help others to not feel alone in their survival,” she says. “And more personally, it was finally the moment in my life where I got to validate that little girl inside — letting her know that ‘I see her and I love her.’”
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Ell goes on to explain that she hopes to use the song to inspire real change, and will donate all proceeds to her Make You Movement. The first partner organization receiving funds from Make You Movement will be The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), which is the United States’ largest anti-sexual violence organization.
“I believe music has the power to heal,” she says. “The reason I decided to share my story at this point in my life is that I want it to be able to help a lot of people; and the best way to help people is to not only raise my voice, but to raise money in an effort to raise awareness and understanding. I want to support programs that help girls & boys who may have been victims and support safety and prevention programs that aim to keep potential victims safe. Finally writing ‘make you’ has given me the courage to not let my past decide my future, so I am taking action in order to do just that. My hope is that my actions and song will inspire the same in others.”
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Ell’s heart theory album set for August 14, and she’s already released two other tracks from the intriguing project — “i don’t love you” and “want me back,” which will hit country radio as her next single on July 13.
