“Tell me that it’s real / I want to feel!”
It’s a simple plea, but Rosso Tierney’s “Feel” builds an entire rock song around its uncertainty. The York artist’s latest single turns a deeply human question about connection into fast-moving, guitar-driven alternative rock, drawing on the energy and emotional intensity of ’90s rock.
Right from the opening lines, “Thinking of the reasons why it’s time to cry / Thinking of the reasons why I should not say goodbye,” the song places us inside the uncertainty of a relationship that isn’t necessarily without love, but perhaps without the feeling of connection. Tierney captures the strange space between knowing someone cares and actually experiencing that care.
That tension becomes more pronounced as he sings, “And if I told you that I love you / It wouldn’t be a lie.” The problem isn’t whether the words are true. It’s whether they are enough. When he follows with “When I’m close to you / When I’m far from you / When I call you, love you, care for you,” the repetition feels almost like an attempt to prove that the relationship is real, before returning to the central question: “Tell me that it’s real / I want to feel.”
Musically, however, there is little hesitation. Distorted guitars and heavy drums push “Feel” forward with a punk-edged urgency, while a soaring guitar solo gives the track its release. Influences from ’90s alternative rock, particularly The Smashing Pumpkins, are apparent, but the song feels less like nostalgia and more like a contemporary take on familiar guitar-rock language.
The accompanying video expands that sense of scale, placing Tierney and his vintage 1970s Oldsmobile Delta 88 against a vast former WWII runway in Yorkshire. Warm yellow and orange tones give it a cinematic, road-movie quality that complements the track’s restless momentum.
Rosso Tierney’s “Feel” leaves its central question deliberately unresolved. “I just wanna feel / to make it real” becomes less a conclusion than a plea: asking whether love, without the experience of connection, can ever truly feel real!
