The more you have, the more that you have to lose – or at least, that’s the pessimistic view our brain takes just when things are finally going our way. When you’ve been on a losing streak for so long you start to view every win with suspicion; when you’ve had your heart broken so many times, you convince yourself that every new love will end the same way. Expect the worst and you’ll either be correct or pleasantly surprised, right? Great in theory, but in practice it’s no way to live your life. ‘Hall Pass’, the new single from singer/songwriter Sophia Alexa, is a bittersweet reflection on self sabotage. How that defence mechanism turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, wherein a relationship becomes doomed to fail because you were scared to get too close and leave yourself vulnerable. This gorgeous slice of folk pop, awash with harmonies so potent they swell and soar like an entire orchestra, details the feeling of being unwilling to be the one to pull the plug, and instead offering the other person an out and leaving fate in their hands. There’s a blissful undercurrent to the track’s resignation, a strange comfort in knowing how things end, even if in reality it isn’t yet written in stone.