If you’ve ever felt emotionally unhinged and strangely powerful in the same moment, Summer Nixon’s latest single “Maraschino Cherries” is your anthem. It’s not just a song—it’s a blood-red, cinematic mood, dripping with lust, bitterness, and beautifully curated chaos. Part alt-R&B, part poetic soul, and part seductive fever dream, this track proves that Summer Nixon isn’t just creating music—they’re crafting entire emotional universes.
From the very first beat, “Maraschino Cherries” draws you into Nixon’s noir-inspired world—a place where desire and danger blur under shadowy lighting. With moody, spacious production and vocals that hover between breathy confession and icy control, the song seduces you the same way its narrator tries to seduce an unattainable lover. It’s slow-burning but sharp, sweet on the surface with a bite underneath—just like the candy-red fruit it’s named after.
The instrumentation floats in a dreamlike haze: atmospheric synths, reverb-drenched percussion, and layered textures that never fully resolve. It’s hypnotic, tense, and sensually unstable, mirroring the emotional confusion Nixon describes.
In Nixon’s own words, the song was born out of post-breakup emotional whiplash:
“I wrote it while craving intimacy after a breakup, wanting him back, but not really. I missed his touch but also wanted revenge.”
That duality—longing and loathing—threads itself through every line and every note. The lyrics don’t plead; they perform. There’s a femme fatale energy in the way Nixon both yearns and threatens, seduces and resents. Like the artificial sweetness of maraschino cherries, there’s something almost too perfect about the facade being maintained—just enough to feel dangerous.
What makes “Maraschino Cherries” more than just a song is its intentionality. Nixon is a multidisciplinary artist, and that shows. Every sonic choice feels cinematic, like it’s been story-boarded in advance. Inspired by the stylized violence of Blade and Sin City, the song paints in crimson and shadow. You can almost see the gloss of red lips, the flick of a cigarette, the moment the knife glints under neon light.
This is a track made to be visualized. You don’t just hear it—you feel it, see it, fall into it.
There’s a reason fans of FKA twigs, SZA, Lana Del Rey, and Kali Uchis will immediately click with this track. Like those artists, Nixon doesn’t shy away from vulnerability—but they also don’t let it define them. There’s power in the way “Maraschino Cherries” owns its chaos. It’s the sound of someone who’s been hurt, who’s still hurting, but is choosing to turn that pain into something sensual, theatrical, and self-possessed.
What started as an “unserious experiment” quickly became one of Summer Nixon’s most arresting pieces of work to date. “Maraschino Cherries” is sultry, cinematic, and emotionally layered—proof that Nixon knows how to turn real heartbreak into high art. It’s a track that lingers long after it ends, leaving a taste both sweet and poisonous in your mouth.
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