London-based, half-Italian, half-British Erica Manzoli’s new single, “Dear Other Woman” is written as a letter, and the first lines place us directly inside that tone of quiet, aching restraint.
“Dear other woman, won’t you let me slip your mind?” The narrator is not confronting or accusing—she is asking to be forgotten. There is weariness here, not rage. “I don’t want you to feel guilty, in a way you’re being kind.” She acknowledges that the other woman is not an enemy. In this dynamic, blame is diffused and grief is shared.
The next thought is where the emotional complexity sharpens: “He is yours and he is mine.” The narrator has already accepted that her partner is divided between the two of them. She is not describing an affair discovered; she is describing an arrangement already in motion. “Keep him happy, but don’t kill me.” She understands that her relationship is fragile and is asking the other woman not to damage what remains of it. “Pull the wool over my eyes, don’t keep him overnight.” She is willing to be deceived if it helps her cope. She sets one condition—let her remain in the place he returns to, even if he leaves pieces of himself behind.
The chorus is the clearest admission of her conflicted feelings. “It’s a twisted point of view, but I’m grateful I have you.” Her survival depends on the other woman playing her role. “I know I really shouldn’t want another woman.” The “want” here is not desire—it is reliance. She needs this other woman to carry the burden she feels unable to carry alone. “Sex it haunts me everyday… You’ll do the things I couldn’t.” The emotional center of the song is sexual shame: she believes she is failing her partner, and therefore deserves to share him.
In the second verse, the emotional self-protection becomes surreal. “Please wear my favourite perfume, so when I kiss his cheek… I’ll tell myself it’s me.” She asks the other woman to adopt her identity, so she can pretend intimacy remains intact. This is a ritual of denial. But the truce has a limit. “If you start to think about him like he’s your missing piece… that’s not what we agreed.” Emotion cannot enter this arrangement. “I thought we were a team.” The narrator imagines cooperation between the two women—a shared performance designed to keep a relationship alive that is already slipping away.
The final chorus changes only one word, but that shift is crucial: “Sex still makes me feel ashamed.” The shame is internal, originating from the narrator’s own sense of inadequacy. The other woman is not the rival; she is the stand-in for everything the narrator cannot bring herself to be. “I never thought I would want another woman.” The admission lands differently now: her desire is not for the partner, nor for the other woman—it is for relief from the guilt of not being enough.
By the end, nothing is resolved. The arrangement still stands, but it is visibly collapsing under the weight of self-assurance. The beauty of the song lies in its refusal to simplify the situation into villains and victims. Manzoli’s writing allows grief to be honest, desperate, and clear-eyed. The vocal delivery—soft, close, almost whispered—matches the emotional posture exactly. The production leaves space around every word, as if the silence itself is the thing she cannot say.
From her press release, “’Dear Other Woman’ came from a place of questioning,” says Manzoli.“It’s a fictional letter that imagines a situation I’ve thought about how I might actually feel if someone else crossed a boundary with the person I love. It’s not about wanting that but about exploring how emotional and physical intimacy can sometimes pull in different directions. As someone who sits somewhere on the asexual spectrum, I wanted to be honest about the confusion that can come with that and start a conversation about something that isn’t often spoken about.”
“Dear Other Woman” captures the quiet devastation of loving someone while believing you are losing them, and still begging to be replaced in the most careful, least painful way possible. It is a song about trying to survive heartbreak without letting go, and the cost of choosing to stay when staying means disappearing.
It is quiet, and tender… lovely. I cannot wait to hear more from this incredible new young artist.