Maddie Regent Talks “Schoolbags,” Childhood Innocence and Finding Her Way Back to Imagination

The new single, out today, August 14, began with an image Maddie couldn’t get out of her head: young children waiting for a school bus with clear backpacks.

“It made me sad for them and how it appears they’ve been forced to grow up much faster due to the state of the world,” Regent tells Everyday Jams. “Each generation’s kids had their struggles but I do believe we were able to escape with our imagination.”

For an artist whose music has always found somewhere interesting to exist between reality and fantasy, that loss of imagination hit particularly close.

“I worry that even now the kids are losing that magic earlier every year,” she says.

“Schoolbags” takes that worry and turns it into something intimate. Rather than trying to make a sweeping statement about the world children are inheriting, Regent writes from grief, looking backward at her own childhood while beginning to think about what growing up might eventually mean for her.

Writing from grief instead of anger

Maddie could have made “Schoolbags” an angry song. She intentionally didn't.

“I don’t know how to change it or who to be mad at anymore,” she says. “I just know that I’m sad, but I do have hope.”

Approaching the song from that place ultimately made writing it feel more healing. As Maddie gets older, she says she has actually found herself moving closer to the child she used to be rather than further away from her.

“As I get older the closer I get to my own inner child and in a way I’m grieving the life I thought I’d be able to give my own children.”

It gives “Schoolbags” an interesting tension. There is grief for something that has already changed, but also grief for something that hasn't happened yet.

Maddie is getting married, which has naturally brought conversations about children and the future closer to her own life. That made the perspective behind the song feel necessary to share.

“I’m getting married and questions about kids naturally come up, and aside from the fact that I still feel like a kid myself I also know that I want better for my kids than what it seems kids these days have,” she says.

She is careful not to pretend she has all the answers. Maddie acknowledges that today's children are adapting to the world they know, while she is inevitably looking at it through the lens of her own childhood.

“I can’t help but have nostalgia for my own life,” she says. “I feel lucky to even be able to say that.”

A world to get lost in

If the subject matter of “Schoolbags” is heavy, Maddie never wanted the song to feel purely literal.

The production is expansive and atmospheric, giving the track the feeling of stepping into a scene rather than simply listening to someone tell you about one.

That is very much the point.

“I want my songs to be visual,” Maddie says. “I want for people to listen and stare out the car window imagining a scenario.”

It is one of the clearest ways into Maddie's creative world. She doesn't just want to write a song about imagination. She wants to give listeners somewhere to use theirs.

“We love creating productions that create a world for people to get lost in,” she says. “It’s my favorite part.”

That instinct connects “Schoolbags” to the larger chapter Regent began introducing with “See Me.”

For Maddie, “See Me” explores the parts of herself that disappear into stories, placing herself inside them as a way of understanding her own emotions. “Schoolbags” turns that lens outward for a moment.

“‘Schoolbags’ feels like a quick sidebar of me worrying that kids these days are losing the ability to escape into their imaginations,” she explains, “which is what my album is about.”

Finding her way back

That relationship with imagination isn't new.

Maddie describes childhood as a time when she was deeply immersed in make-believe. She staged elaborate plays for her family, disappeared into books and watched movies only to spend the following days pretending to be their characters.

Then, like it does for so many people, self-awareness arrived.

“I feel like my whole life I’ve been trying to accept my inner child and subconsciously get back to who I was at my most confident,” Maddie says, “which was of course me at 12 years old before I even registered that I was being perceived by anyone.”

It is one of the most revealing ideas behind this new era.

Her last album, On the phone with my mom, felt like the process of working through that distance. The music coming next feels more like discovering who was waiting on the other side.

“This one feels more like who I am now that I’ve found my way back to my childlike energy,” she says. “The whimsy, the make-believe, the bookworm, the girl who would watch movies and pretend to be the characters for days after.”

There is one version of herself she seems particularly interested in finding again.

“There was a period of time where I was so spunky and unafraid of what people thought of me,” Maddie says. “That quickly changed with puberty but I do feel like I’m constantly trying to get back to that girl.”

Then she puts it much more simply:

“She was so cool and nothing was wrong with her.”

Schoolbags

“Schoolbags” follows “See Me,” but the two songs are also arriving after a larger shift in the way Maddie writes about herself.

Looking back at On the phone with my mom, she can see how much fear she has shed.

“I think I’ve gotten over being afraid of people knowing about me and my issues,” she says. “I have no shame anymore.”

For Maddie, that openness has been freeing rather than exposing.

“It’s been so healing for me and I hope people can get inspired by that growth and lose themselves in this next album.”

It makes sense that the music on the other side of that realization would turn toward imagination. Maddieisn't trying to become the person she was at 12 again. She is finding room for that version of herself inside the person she is now.

And “Schoolbags” makes the stakes of preserving that part of ourselves feel a little bigger.

When asked what she hopes stays with someone after the song ends, Maddie doesn't complicate the answer.

“I think just that the kids deserve better and we should do all we can to give it to them,” she says. “Kids should be kids and they’re smarter than we think.”

There is more coming from this world. More stories. More make-believe. More of Maddie herself, too.

What does she want people to discover about this chapter?

“That I love to read, I love to dress up, and that I’m actually very weird and proud of it.”

For a record concerned with finding your way back to the person you were before you became conscious of everyone watching, that might be the perfect place to begin.

Maddie Regent’s “Schoolbags” is out now.

Photography: Cade Hoppe