Elina Filice Releases “Bury Me,” a Punk-Pop Pride Anthem About the Shirt You’d Be Buried In and the Love You’d Never Want Back
Toronto-based singer, songwriter, and storyteller Elina Filice releases her joyful, life-affirming new single “Bury Me,” a Canadiana-soaked punk-pop anthem that announces itself immediately as one of the most infectious and emotionally generous songs of her career. Co-produced by Filice and Kevin Brennan and released on her own Red Vine Records, the track is a love song built around a Molson Canadian t-shirt, a running joke, and the quietly astonishing realization that you have built a life with someone you never want to give back. It is the kind of song that sneaks up on you, arriving as a laugh and staying as something much deeper and more lasting.
The song began, as Filice tells it, with a very real dispute. An old t-shirt, stolen from a past love, became a years-long argument about who it truly belonged to, until one night her partner settled it with a line that stopped everything: if I die tonight, they’ll have to bury me in this shirt, and then you’re never gonna get it back. That line, and the whole ordinary extraordinary universe it opened up, became “Bury Me.” As Filice has described it, the song is about the seemingly ordinary artefacts that narrate our lives, the almost accidental life you build with someone you love, sharing your hopes, dreams, and fears. The chorus captures it with the kind of plainspoken clarity that great pop songs make look easy: “Bury me in this / Shirt that you got from The Beer Store / If I die tonight, you’re never gonna get it back.”
By the song’s second chorus the whole emotional architecture has shifted, the joke becoming a vow, the borrowed shirt becoming something sacred. “I never thought I’d love with my eyes so open wide,” Filice sings, before landing on the line that gives the whole song its true weight: “‘Cuz I gotta see what she looks like at 65.” It is the kind of lyric that earns its place by being entirely, unmistakably true. Produced alongside Brennan with drums by Erik Thorkildsen and bass by Michael Myszkowski, the track moves with the energy of a Pride anthem and the tenderness of something far more private, a song that is equal parts Canadiana singalong and queer love letter, and a strong contender for the gay song of the summer.
Filice has been building toward this moment across a body of work that has earned consistent critical acclaim on multiple continents. Growing up in Singapore before relocating to Canada for university and then to Dublin, where she founded Red Vine Records and performed professionally across Ireland and Europe, she developed a singular artistic voice rooted in blues and spoken word but restless enough to range across folk, hip-hop, pop, rock, and back again. Her 2020 singles ‘Thinking of You’ and ‘Lying’ earned widespread critical praise and landed on official Spotify Editorial playlists, with Hot Press declaring her one of the most thrilling talents on the Irish scene and Nialler9 praising her bright spoken-word style that heightens the jazz-blues pop song’s charm. Her cover of Chance the Rapper’s ‘First World Problems,’ which she rewrote entirely in her own voice, demonstrated a lyrical confidence and range that few artists at any stage of a career can match, and her sophomore EP, released in May 2021, deepened that reputation considerably further.
Now back in Toronto and operating at the full breadth of her considerable abilities, Filice is also the founder of Drop Rocket, a music marketing startup that has built genuine momentum as innovative project management software empowering independent artists to release music smarter and more effectively. That entrepreneurial drive is entirely of a piece with the artistic independence that has defined her career from the beginning, and “Bury Me” is its most fully realised musical expression yet. A fierce advocate for queer visibility who regards music as a powerful tool for the queer community, Filice arrives this Pride season with a song that earns its place in that tradition not through statement but through pure, irresistible feeling. Her single release show takes place June 2 alongside Maiasha as part of a Queer Music Pride kick-off event, tickets available at eventbrite.ca.
Hi, Elina! Good to see you again! Care to introduce yourself to the readers for those not familiar with your music?
Hi, I’m Elina! I’m a singer-songwriter now based in Toronto. I would describe my music as windows-down road-trip gay alt-pop. You’d be right to accuse me of genre diversity (from folk to rock to spoken word and back), but I think all my music still sounds like me. I’ve been lucky enough to play music across the world and collaborate with some incredible musicians. I’m also the founder of Drop Rocket, a music marketing startup that empowers independent artists to release music better through simple but powerful project management software.
The song starts with a joke about a Molson Canadian t-shirt, but ends up being about commitment and mortality. At what point did you realize this funny story was actually carrying something much deeper?
It definitely wasn’t the plan! I think it became a song about something bigger than a shirt through the process of actually writing it. It really unfolded for me like it does for the listener. The song opens with us joke-arguing about the shirt (which actually happened), this running joke that I was never getting it back. Verse 2 continues narratively, describing getting up to go to work, being broke, dreaming about the future, chasing our dreams together.
By the time we come to the last chorus, the emotional world of the song is fully evolved. It’s me seeing a deeper meaning in a seemingly ordinary conversation, an inside joke, an old shirt. It was reflecting on the love we shared and the life we built together by, almost by accident.
You sing, “I gotta see what she looks like at 65,” which is such a striking lyric because it’s romantic without being idealized. What does long-term queer love look like to you, and why was it important to write about that rather than the beginning stages of a relationship?
Yeah, everyone loves that line! Not to be too candid but I think most humans (especially queer folks) struggle with mental health at one point or another. Ultimately, it’s love that gives our lives meaning and purpose. So the notion of, I’ll stay alive just to experience her love, I’ll stay alive for, if nothing else, just to watch her grow old, see what age looks like on her, knowing she’ll still be beautiful.
A lot of Pride anthems are about struggle, resistance, or self-acceptance. “Bury Me” feels different because it’s about ordinary happiness. Was it important for you to celebrate queer joy rather than queer hardship?
Absolutely! Hardship and struggle are part of the brand, but there’s a whole lot of joy and epic love stories that also deserve to be told. I want to tell queer stories with depth, by honoring their complexity but also universality. I believe that queer music and art are so important to our global struggle for freedom and acceptance. I think songwriting offers a really unique medium for telling our stories, for normalizing and humanizing us through our unique (but also universal) experiences.
Growing up in Singapore, then moving to Canada and Ireland before returning to Toronto, you’ve lived across very different cultures. How has that journey shaped your understanding of identity, belonging, and love?
I’ve been lucky enough to experience different cultures and live a lot of different lives. I think more than anything it’s just deepened my empathy. You think the more you travel, the closer you’ll come to finding some answers about life, love, identity, belonging – to make some sense out of this crazy world. I think I’ve just ended up with more questions!