British singer/ songwriter Leon Else just released a new single, What I Won’t Do, today. It’s the latest single to be released from his upcoming What Are We Doing debut EP, due this summer.
He’s such a major talent and a rising star. You must know his hits Black Car, River Full of Liquor and of course, Cheap Hotel.
Well, Else is excited more than ever to tell his story and if you try read between the lines you might feel a bit confused, but Else just posted this clarifying note on Facebook.
“I believe we all struggle with self-acceptance at some point or another. Up until very recently I had spent most of my life living a lie. No one in my life knew the real me, and it came to a point where I don’t think I even knew who that person was. I was running from my truth because of all the pain and darkness I had experienced. I buried all of my past heartache because I never wanted to feel that again. I was in a state in which I was so ashamed of who I was and didn’t know how to truly live openly.
I wrote ‘What I Won’t Do’ about a year ago when I was in this place with the hope that I could become the person I am today. I finally feel free, have found acceptance in myself, and have allowed myself to have the kind of love I have always wanted. It is the kind of love I deep down thought I always deserved, but didn’t know how to show it, be it, or even to accept it. I didn’t think it was possible, but now I’m here. I still have a ways to go, but I’m working on it.
‘What I Won’t Do’ is my homage to all of my old agony – what I wouldn’t do to have that love and connection I wanted so badly to feel. I didn’t know how to open myself up to that, although deep down I did feel that at some point it would be possible. I always had hope.
When I wrote this song, most people just thought it was about an obvious heterosexual scenario because that’s how I portrayed it. But I really wrote it as my own way of saying that everything is not as it seemed;
It’s not a woman I wanted in my bed, but a man.
It was my way of releasing the burden I felt without anyone really knowing my secret.
We all deserve love. It’s what makes life wonderful – no matter who we love, where we love, or how we love. No one has the right to push their beliefs onto you, or to make you feel you don’t deserve love… because you do. For so many years I let those people hold me back, but I don’t let them hold me back anymore. ‘What I Won’t Do’ is the start of my story of self-acceptance. I really hope that it can inspire you and to accept yourself, because you are amazing, you are wonderful, and you deserve love, no matter who it’s with, or who they are.
For me, this song now represents accepting who I truly am and the kind of love I want. Love always prevails.”
Xx
Leon
Everyone struggles and once you achieve some level of fame, it probably doesn’t making coming out any easier. Perhaps the reverse. As we say here at WOW,
Condragulations!
You can get What I Won’t Do here on iTunes. Listen below.
Here’s the live version and his interview with Elvis Duran.