The hook arrived days before the song. Earlier in the week, the red sweater on the artwork for “we fell in love in october” started turning blue. The shirt on the Mozart portrait in her Instagram profile picture went from red to blue too, and the handle @girlinred became @girlinblue. On Friday 9 October, girl in red released “blue”, her first new music in over a year, through Columbia Records, as NME reported.
It is a small, clever rollout built on one colour. Here is how the teaser worked, why the timing mattered, what the song and its Oslo video are about, and where “blue” sits in Marie Ulven’s story since her last album.
Three Small Changes Did the Teasing
The campaign ran on three quiet edits, each one easy to miss on its own.
The first was the artwork for “we fell in love in october”, the 2018 song whose streams peak every year. The red sweater in that image was gradually recoloured blue. The second was her Instagram profile picture, a portrait of Mozart, whose shirt also changed from red to blue. The third was the account name. According to The Line of Best Fit, @girlinred became @girlinblue, and fans were soon talking about the clues.
Each change worked because it touched something fans already look at. Nobody had to be sent to a new page. The teaser sat on the profile they follow and on the cover of a song they already stream, and the meaning was clear once two clues lined up: a colour was changing, so something new was coming.
The colour itself carried the message. An artist named girl in red, releasing a song called “blue”, only needed to swap one word in her own name to announce it. That is the whole campaign in one line, and it fits in a profile header.
Why October Was the Right Week
The timing was not random. NME noted that the artwork change came ahead of the yearly streaming peak of “we fell in love in october”. The song is, by its title alone, an October song, and listeners come back to it every autumn. Prelude Press made the same point: the sweater turned blue just ahead of the song’s annual surge.
That makes the old song the launch pad for the new one. Listeners who opened “we fell in love in october” that week found the sweater changing colour. The teaser reached the people most likely to care, at the moment they were already playing her music, without asking them to do anything new.
It also turns a seasonal habit into a release date. A new single arriving on 9 October lands inside the same window, so listeners coming back for the old favourite can move straight on to the new one. For an artist whose best-known song is tied to a month, that is a sensible way to use the calendar rather than fight it.
What “blue” Is About
The song itself is a breakup song with the doubt left in. NME described it as a track about uncertainty and the feeling of loss after a relationship comes to an end, written in the same emotive style she has had since the beginning. Prelude Press heard it as a song about the uncertainty of change and the emotions that come with finding your way through it.
It runs 4:11, according to its listing on Audiomack, where it is filed under rock. The release line there reads Columbia Records, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, under exclusive licence from world in red.
The length is worth noting for a comeback single. At over four minutes, “blue” runs longer than many current singles, which suits the slow, clue-by-clue way it was announced. This is a release that took its time on purpose, from the first recoloured sweater to the final frame of the video.
A Video Shot at Home in Oslo
The video was directed by Isak Jenssen, girl in red’s longtime creative partner, and filmed in Oslo, her home city. Ulven stars in it. The Line of Best Fit described it as an intimate look at a couple over the years, homing in on the small moments that shaped their story.
NME added that it explores how heartbreak has made her into the person she is today. Prelude Press called the video personal and honest, and said it introduces a striking new visual world.
Choosing Oslo keeps the release close to home in every sense. The teaser lived on her own profile, the song is about her own uncertainty, and the video was shot in her own city by a collaborator she has worked with for years. Nothing about the rollout reaches for scale. All of it reaches for intimacy.
From “Hemingway” to “blue”
“blue” is her first new music since “Hemingway”, a standalone single released in May last year. That song was a heavy one. In an Instagram post at the time, she explained that it told part of the story of her struggles with addiction, an eating disorder and depression, which she said had left her in a really bad place.
Speaking to NME at Glastonbury 2025 about the response, she said she was very moved by it, describing “Hemingway” as a vulnerable song about addiction, heartbreak and relationship problems and the way they intertwine. She admitted she had been scared to release it and worried about how people would see her, before deciding that addiction is an illness and “something we need to talk about a lot more.”
Her last full-length record was I’m Doing It Again Baby!, released in April 2024 with a collaboration with Sabrina Carpenter among its tracks. “Hemingway” and “blue” are both standalone singles, released more than a year apart, and both are personal songs. “Hemingway” looked back at a dark period. “blue” looks at the end of a relationship and what is left after it.
PopHits.News recently looked at how Beabadoobee got louder by missing home on Pylon, a full album built around one feeling. girl in red is taking a different route for now: one song at a time, close to home.
An Acting Debut in Low Expectations
Music is not the only thing on her schedule. NME reported that she makes her acting debut in the film Low Expectations, due for release in the UK and Ireland in early 2027. According to the synopsis reported by Screen Daily and cited by NME, the film follows Maja, a musician who falls apart at the height of her career, moves back home with her mother and works part-time at a local high school while she slowly finds her way back to life.
She talked about the shoot with NME at Glastonbury 2025. Her point was that acting and performing are closer than they look. On stage, she explained, there are nights when she is not in the mood for a particular song but taps into it anyway, and it becomes a performance. Acting asked for the same thing: taking on a character, and reaching for feelings she has probably had before but was not feeling on the day.
The schedule was the surprise. She described days of 10 to 12 hours for about a month, and said the shoot felt more intense than touring, though she enjoyed it and hoped the film would turn out well. For an artist whose new single is about uncertainty after a relationship ends, a screen debut about a musician falling apart and rebuilding at home is a close thematic neighbour.
More Music Is on the Way
On the music side, both The Line of Best Fit and Prelude Press said more is on the way, and the rollout points the same way: a colour change is the kind of teaser that can carry a whole campaign. No album, tracklist or tour has been announced yet.
For now, the change is the news. This week the handle read @girlinblue, the October song wore a blue sweater, and the new single arrived right on time for the month her listeners come back.
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