Mandy Moore Releases First New Song In A Decade, ‘When I Wasn’t Watching’

Missing Mandy Moore like candy? Well, she’s finally back with her first new song in a decade. 

The Emmy-nominated actress is taking a break from leaving you in a puddle every week on “This Is Us” and returning to her roots as a singer. On Tuesday, Moore released her single “When I Wasn’t Watching” and an accompanying music video off her forthcoming seventh album, which will arrive early next year on the Verve Forecast label. 

“When I Wasn’t Watching” is Moore at her most authentic, bridging her pop influences and contemporary folk music tastes into an emotionally grounded but upbeat exploration of self-discovery.

“My favorite version of me disappeared /Through longer days and shorter years,” she sings on the track. “So where was I when this was going down?”

“The idea of diving back into music after so much time and personal change was really intimidating to me for a while,” she said in a statement to People about the song. “But then I finally realized: I’m the only person who can make this move. It all has to start with me.”

Moore entered the pantheon of pop princesses with her 1999 debut album “So Real.” She went on to release a handful of popular singles throughout the early aughts like “Candy,” “I Wanna Be With You” and “In My Pocket” and five more albums that pushed her beyond the boundaries of bubblegum pop and into a more grounded, adult sound. 

Her sixth studio album, “Amanda Leigh,” which spawned the lead single “I Could Break Your Heart Any Day of the Week” in 2009 was the last we heard from Moore besides a 2017 cover of the Little Feat track “Willin” on the “This Is Us” soundtrack. 

The actor has previously credited her break from music to her tumultuous marriage to musician Ryan Adams, which lasted from 2009 to 2016, describing him as psychologically abusive in a New York Times report earlier this year alongside six other women with their own stories about Adams’ allegedly manipulative behavior. 

Moore, who’s since married Dawes frontman Taylor Goldsmith, said that “music was a point of control” in her relationship with Adams.

“I want to make music,” she told the outlet at the time. “I’m not going to let Ryan stop me.”

And, if you are wanting, well, more from the singer-songwriter, she is reportedly set to drop another new single before the end of the year.