A lot of songwriters have been addressing the pandemic in different ways over the past year, but in her new single and music video “We Fly Together or We Don’t Fly at All,” singer Robyn McCorquodale uses her angelic voice to speak directly to those who have been on the front lines this whole time. Rather than trying to dazzle with a ridiculously imagistic lyric here or a profoundly poetic statement there, her lead vocal is the ultimate agent of evocation in “We Fly Together or We Don’t Fly at All,” which I’m ranking among her very best material to be released to date.

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The video for the single is quite literate and doesn’t overindulge in any of its heavenly features, starting with the music itself. The balance between the visuals and the soundtrack is essential to making everything here feel really cohesive and authentic, and by producing this video to put the music at the center of every move we see on screen, McCorquodale makes it impossible for the viewer to walk away from what they’ve seen unaffected by the content. That’s a cerebral approach to pop songcraft, but one I’m sure her fans have come to expect by now.

This vocal is naturally more powerful than anything else here, and even with the assistance of a defined EQ I think that the percussion is the only real component capable of holding its own against the chorus. There’s just too much passion coming from these pipes for anything else to compete, hence why I think her acceptance of a minimalistic framework with regards to the main harmony in “We Fly Together or We Don’t Fly at All” was one of the best moves McCorquodale made in creating the track. She knows what she can do as a singer, and therefor knows how to prevent negative excess from entering the big picture.

The inspirational tone of the video makes the momentum of the beat all the stronger as we near the climax of the song, and had it not been as perfectly synchronized as it was I don’t know that our star would have the dynamic, star-caliber presence that she does here. The precision is everything in “We Fly Together or We Don’t Fly at All,” and it’s something that I’d honestly like to see some of Robyn McCorquodale’s contemporaries in the underground try and adopt when crafting their own original content this year.

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Adult contemporary enthusiasts from around the globe have finally got a serious ballad worth taking note of in “We Fly Together or We Don’t Fly at All” in 2021, and if you haven’t heard it already, this February could be the right time to do so. The singer/songwriters persevering through this impossible time for live music deserve plenty of commendations for what they’re doing to reunite much of the populace with their sense of sanity at the moment, but I think Robyn McCorquodale in particular deserves a lot of love for what she’s doing. This is some amazing work, and it comes at a time in which affectionate melodies really can be the best medicine.

John McCall