As expressions of unrequited love go, Ellie Goulding's new song "The Writer" is a fine – raw, eloquent, generally gorgeous – effort. It is steeped in unrecognised, unrealised passion, in romanticism and sorrow. Her voice is ghostly sweet, saved from sickliness by guttural Björk-ish quirks; backed up by electropop whimsy and twinkly piano, it is supremely suited to the sentiment. "The Writer" is quite simply the love song of the summer.
The 23-year-old Goulding is halfway through the year she was tipped to dominate as a new artist. In November 2009 she was practically unheard of. By January she had topped the BBC's Sound of 2010 poll; by February she had picked up a Critic's Choice award at the Brits before even releasing an album. In March Goulding released Lights – her 10-track debut, written and produced in collaboration with south London music sensation Starsmith.
"I feel like I'm in a cycle of hype," says Goulding. She's sitting on an off-white sofa in a corner of a photographic studio; she is as shiny and blonde as she looks in the videos, but also thoughtful and very concerned by what other people think. "It's a shame when people get all hyped up and then brought down. But I think people have warmed to me again."
There was some spikiness, after the initial breathless plaudits?
"Absolutely!" Goulding can quote the bad reviews; she remembers who said she looked "too comfortable" on stage at the Brits when in fact "I'd just been pushed on stage, live, with Courtney Love and Geri Halliwell and Fearne Cotton, and they actually cut me out because all I could say was: 'This is a bit weird…'"
Goulding grew up in Hereford. Her mum worked in a shop, and her stepfather was a lorry driver. "Was I ambitious? I don't know if ambition was the word. I was a weird kid; I thought about things too much. I worried –I thought the world was going to end or my hair was falling out… But ambition? I suppose, my siblings: they never had the thing that I had. The drive? But I wasn't a good singer. I wasn't a good songwriter."
Really?
"No, I really wasn't! But I'm glad. I wasn't given support. Everyone said: 'Don't sing – you've got a weird voice', and I'm glad. If my family had gone: 'Yeah! Go for it!', I'd have ended up being pushed on to X Factor."
Instead of which she found her own way. At 18 Goulding went to drama school in Kent; at 19 she won a student singing competition, got picked up by a manager who was in the audience, took a year out, bought a guitar, and started writing. "People think I burst on to the scene, but I've been doing this for a long time. I just took my guitar around London. I wasn't clever enough to think: 'This could go on to something pretty big!' Never! It was only when I started working with Starsmith [in 2009] that I thought: 'Yeah, I can fucking do this.'"
Goulding is a professional where unrequited love is concerned. Lights is full of it: it's all over previous number one single "Guns and Horses", and also the third album track "This Love Will Be Your Downfall". "The Writer" was written while Goulding was in the most awful stages of heartbreak. "I was so sad when I wrote it. So sad."
But now, she tells me, she's, "Um, sort of randomly met a boy and, um, I'm sort of in a relationship…" which I already know, because her closeness with 24-year-old Radio 1 DJ Greg James has been widely gossiped about. She can't help talking about him. She tells me how clever he is, how much he thinks about things, how often they talk "like adults".
"I call him G Dog."
Oh my! You are in love!
"I think so. Which is most uncharacteristic."
Goulding had wondered if a gentler, more equal love life might have an impact on her songwriting, make it sunnier and less woeful. "But I've just written a song called 'Blood', which is about two people being unhealthily obsessed by each other, so apparently not."
She is, she thinks, just basically a bit dark. She thinks some part of her will always feel unfulfilled; she's been suffering from panicky heart flutters recently which are alarming her, preventing her from sleeping.
"It's a shame, man! Sometimes I wish I could just think positively about everything. Even when I'm in a good mood, I think: 'Why am I in a good mood?' Doom laden!"
Of course you would like her to be happier, but if doom laden is what it takes for Ellie Goulding to create songs like "The Writer", maybe it's best if she doesn't cheer up too much.
"The Writer" is out on 9 August