With their new single “Mother, Pray For Me,” The Beths trade in their usual fizzy power-pop hooks for something far more intimate—and the result is absolutely devastating. Released ahead of their forthcoming album Straight Line Was A Lie (out August 29 on ANTI-), the track finds frontperson Elizabeth Stokes laying her heart bare over nothing but gently plucked acoustic guitar and a whisper of organ. It’s a quiet moment of reckoning that hits like a tidal wave.
Gone is the full-band clamor of past records like Future Me Hates Me. In its place: a raw, confessional lullaby trembling with honesty. Stokes’ voice feels almost childlike as she offers a prayer that’s not just a plea to her mother, but a searching meditation on intergenerational love, identity, and unspoken expectations. “It’s not really about my mother,” she explains. “It’s about me—what I hope our relationship is, what I think it is, what it maybe actually is.”
That complexity is palpable in every note. Born in Jakarta to a devout Catholic Indonesian mother, Stokes moved to Auckland at age four. The song, she says, reflects on her mother’s relationship to faith, to motherhood, and to her own mother—layers of connection that ripple throughout the track like echoes in an empty church.
“Mother, Pray For Me” is a quiet stunner, a risk that pays off in full. Stripped of frills, it’s proof The Beths can land an emotional punch just as powerfully as they can craft a sugary hook. If this is the tone-setter for Straight Line Was A Lie, we’re in for something deeply personal, reflective, and possibly the band’s most ambitious work to date.
Upcoming Album:
🎧 Straight Line Was A Lie – out August 29 via ANTI-
Watch: “Mother, Pray For Me” Video