Half Written Story - EP

“Every now and then I’ll have a full-circle moment where one part of my career ties right into the other,” Hailee Steinfeld tells Apple Music. Writing Half Written Story, the first in a two-part EP series, was one of them. The actor and pop singer had just finished filming her first season of Dickinson, the Apple TV+ Original series in which she plays poet Emily Dickinson, when she began writing these breakup songs, and she found herself channelling her onstage character in her studio sessions. “I was going through a lot—in my personal life, in my work life—and really feeling the weight of it all,” she says, “but playing that role changed my creative methods. One of the things that made [Dickinson] so brilliant was that she wrote about absolutely everything, regardless of whether it was forbidden, because it made her feel alive. I was so inspired that when I went into the studio, I promised myself I was going to be brutally honest and transparent.” Half Written Story is exactly that. Tracing the aftermath of a gruelling and highly public breakup, it’s full of raw attitude and rich, expressive lyricism—the kind of personal heartbreak record that resonates with anyone who’s been through it. Most impressive is how she refuses to rein in her pain. On the sneering send-up “Man Up”, co-producer D’Mile backlights her commanding chorus with the sounds of crying babies (burn!). And on “Wrong Direction”, she calls out his ego, character and deceptive tactics: “Lookin' back, I probably should have known/But I just wanted to believe that you were out sleepin’ alone,” she sings. Read on for the story behind these five evocative tracks. I Love You’s "I like to think of 'I Love You’s' as the thesis statement for this project. When I was feeling lost and confused and sad and frustrated and angry—all of the emotions that come with heartbreak—I realised that the only thing that was going to make me feel better was time alone, without the distractions of another relationship. Like