Sweet Megg's 'Never Been Home': A Map of the Restless Heart

I had a fascinating conversation with Sweet Megg just before the release of her new album, Never Been Home. That title, it turns out, is no accident. It perfectly encapsulates the restless, searching soul of a songwriter who’s traversed continents, genres, and identities to finally land in Nashville, a place she can, at last, call home. But don't misunderstand the title; this isn't a collection about settling down. Oh no. It's a collection of vignettes about the journey there, a chaotic, beautifully brutal travelogue of the heart set to a glorious, genre-blending soundtrack.

This album, which Megg rightly calls her most personal work yet, is where she truly finds her sound, distilling her truth from years of transatlantic hustle. Most people know her from her decade as a full-time jazz vocalist in the dense, smoky New York scene, or perhaps from her ridiculously viral 1920s-style collaboration on Dua Lipa's "Levitating" with Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox (a video she mentioned still explodes on social media every once in a while). Before consolidating everything under the moniker Sweet Megg—a name that was initially a simple nod to the New Orleans piano legend Sweet Emma—she even tried to use Meg Ferrell for her country/Americana material. But, as she wisely pointed out, when all your followers and performance numbers are tied to one name, you roll with it, right? It was, as she said, a smart "business decision," but it was also a philosophical consolidation of a lifetime of "do a bunch of stuff" into one, consistent artistic identity that weaves early jazz, blues, rock and roll, country, and Western swing into a single, cohesive thread.

What absolutely leaps out on this record is the sense of motion and displacement. The songs are literally littered with geographical markers—New York, Boulder, Tennessee, Paris, London, and even Canberra. It's like the tracklist is a map of her former flights and escapes. Megg admitted this wasn't intentional, merely a subconscious reflection of years spent "running around like a crazy person... and I've never settled down in my entire life."

She shared that while she was born in New York, she always felt unsettled there, noting that she got used to "making homes in other places" because she never felt like she belonged in the city of her birth. The emotional core of this album, the actual reason for the title, is the feeling of finally finding a sense of peace in Nashville after a life of constant speed. She described a moment in her house alone, dancing to Kate Bush, suddenly realizing, "I've never been this alone in my life. And I was like, and I've never felt that. So much at ease, you know, like, and it was just a, oh this is home." It’s a gorgeous, startling moment of self-discovery captured on this record, the sound of a woman finally planting her flag.

The other major thread, deeply tangled up with the travel, is the brutal honesty about love, independence, and lingering heartache. She writes about the pain, the guilt, the toxicity, and the magnetic pull of a difficult love, never trying to varnish the messiness one bit. She mentioned she used to hide the real stories in metaphors, but being around the Nashville songwriting community taught her to start "cutting the fat off a little bit" and just tell the truth. And boy, does she.

This song, which opens with the visceral, gut-punching lines, "As I looked into your eyes / I saw something burning bright and like a moth / I was drawn to the fire / So I stepped into the flame / And I got burnt and double chained," is a blistering testament to destructive, addictive love. The song's intensity is amplified by Megg’s explanation that the track is rooted in the turmoil of falling for her drummer (now her partner) while still being engaged—a love so intense, so toxic, it was impossible to escape.

The brilliant, haunting image, "The stain of your finger tips remains on my shoulder," perfectly captures a love that just won't wash away, even when the singer runs fast—from Tennessee to Boulder. She shared that they would try to break up and move apart, but they’d inevitably end up back together, whether they were in Nashville or Russia. The song's central conflict is right there in the running rhythm: "I can run fast but I won't get very far." The external journey simply cannot fix the internal one.

This track uses the urban landscape and transit infrastructure as a metaphor for searching. It has a gorgeous, wistful quality, referencing the London Underground. But it’s the chorus that makes the listener truly pause: "But I'm waiting on a train alone / I'm waiting on change back home." It suggests that all the frantic external motion is merely a distraction from the real, harder work of internal transformation. This idea connects to her personal history, where she admitted she has a "terribile condition / of not being good at all / being good at all at living." That kind of raw, unflinching self-assessment is the gold standard of songwriting; it’s what separates the good from the great.

This track delves deep into the mental and emotional battles she spoke about—the "awkward, weird" person she felt she was growing up, who "trained myself to not be anymore." The opening lines perfectly set up the struggle: "Can't I ever be good, won't I ever be good... Woke up just a bit angry at myself." The chorus—"And I'm selfish and I don't deserve you / You and me we both know its true"—is heartbreaking in its honesty, but the song quickly finds redemption. It moves through her neuroses ("And I'm neurotic to say the least / But at least I think things through") to a profound realization: "Sadness makes us selfish / Happiness makes us kind / Your love makes me a better person." This song is the sound of her finally slowing down, getting sober, and realizing that building herself back up ("I swear, I swear I'm trying my best") is the true destination of the journey, not the places she traveled to.

Never Been Home is an incredibly rich, well-rounded album that blends the smoky, improvisational nature of jazz with the emotive, story-driven honesty of country and blues. Megg’s final thoughts on vulnerability—that she's most curious about what people are willing to be brave enough to show—is the thesis statement for this entire record. She answered her own question, laying out her most vulnerable, honest, and truly accomplished work to date, proving that all of life’s messy chapters, the bad love, the good love, the self-doubt, they don't just happen to you; they're the fuel for the most meaningful art you can create.

What a brilliant piece of art.