For eight years, Mel Parsons rationalised the red flags and put it on herself to try harder in the abusive relationship she found herself in. One of New Zealand’s most celebrated songwriters now shares her story of how you can always rebuild, even if it’s grain by grain, brick by brick.

Words Sarah Perriam-Lampp  Photos Daniela Aebli 

There was no slammed door. No scene. Just a comment on an ordinary day – small, mean, no bigger than a hundred others – but something in Mel Parsons went click. A West Coast farm kid from a family she describes as loving and no more chaotic than anyone else’s, she had simply never encountered manipulation and gaslighting.

She couldn’t understand it. She is a confident, capable, optimistic woman, not afraid to share an opinion. She is also one of New Zealand’s most treasured and enduring indie-folk songwriters who is used to telling mysterious tales through her darker, melancholic, smoky vocals.

‘I didn’t see myself as someone who could be stuck in that situation,’ she says. ‘And I absolutely was.’

Since her first album in 2009, Mel has built a career in New Zealand music, with seven records, years on the road, and a respected reputation among her loyal fan base. When Mel released ‘Don’t Leave the Light On’ in 2025, she made the difficult decision to speak openly about having been in an emotionally abusive relationship.

‘When I’d made that decision to talk about it publicly, I was like, is this the right thing? Is this too much information? I’m not usually guarded about songs, I try to leave a bit of air in them for people to put their own stories into, and with this, it’s a delicate subject and really confronting for a lot of people.’

She had been in the relationship for eight years and, at 36, was terrified that leaving might mean not realising her dream of having children.

‘You worry that maybe this is the best I can do. Maybe this is all I’m worth.’ Something Mel says is a story so many women in abusive relationships tell themselves.

The red flags, she says, were there from the start. ‘I knew in my gut that it wasn’t right, right from the get-go, but I rationalised a lot of it.’

She was being told that marriage is something to be defended, that it’s hard, and ‘you’ve got to try harder.’
She even convinced herself that if she did better, things would improve.

The people close to her did say something. More than once. ‘They’d come and say ‘you need to get out, what we’re seeing is not okay,’ which is a hugely confronting thing to hear, especially when you’re not ready to acknowledge it.’

One day, there was one comment that was the tipping point. ‘I just said a quiet ‘thank you’ to myself because in that moment, I knew I wouldn’t take it anymore. I made a plan to get out, and I did.’

Her bravery in sharing her story connected with a lot of people, with many writing to her to say the song Don’t Leave the Light On had helped them get their head around their own situation, or find the courage to move on. For Mel, that was absolutely her sole purpose in talking about the subject. ‘It’s gutting to know that so many people relate to my story. There’s a lot of shame,’ she says. ‘I was embarrassed that I was being treated the way I was. It was insidious, sometimes it was behind closed doors, sometimes in public.’

She is careful to point out that she holds no bitterness. ‘That person is not a bad person. That’s all his own stuff. I just realised that it wasn’t my stuff and I was worth so much more. I’m extremely lucky that I got out when I did.’

Now the mother of four, with a loving partner and a new life by the sea in Lyttelton, Mel says it’s a juggle but music is what they both love to do.

One of her latest songs, Be Here Now, from her new album Castle Hill, came out of noticing how easily she disappeared into her phone while her children were in the room needing her.

‘I’d be like, oh, this is really important, it’s work,’ she says. ‘But there’s actually a human there.’ Last summer, she came off social media entirely and used her phone for calls and photographs only. ‘It was such a good reminder that life is in front of us.’

People assume touring must exhaust her. But it does the opposite, with Mel explaining that doing a show is energising and that she has never taken an audience for granted, house concert or theatre.

‘I’m a farm kid, so I’m not woo woo,’ she says, ‘but with an audience you have this amazing energy exchange. What you give, they give back.’

That’s why she wrote Post High Slide, about what happens after a tour, the adrenaline of a run of shows giving way to the mundane of a washing basket at home afterwards. She used to come down hard, now she knows it’s just part of the musician’s world and rolls with it.

Mel knows exactly how her story reads to someone still inside an unhappy marriage, because she waved away the same words herself, more than once, from people who loved her. She needed eight years to process it herself too.

Her message to those in a similar situation – ‘I just hope you know you are worth a great deal more than the story you’ve been telling yourself.’

Castle Hill was released early August 2026, and the nationwide tour with her band – to be will be held in beautiful theatres across the country – will be rooms full of people giving her back what she’s given them.

Mel Parsons brand new record Castle Hill released August 2026. melparsons.com

 

Don’t Leave the Light on, Mel Parsons
(Lyrics abridged)

Don’t leave the light on

Don’t take a long shower

Don’t eat in bed

Don’t stop for flowers

You gotta tell me where you’re going

How long you’ll be there

Girl you should be home by now

Let me make it clear to you that you

Don’t go visit family

You saw them back a week or three

My whole family warning me

Get out get out get out

I say man you’ve got some work to do

I know that it’s not me it’s most definitely you

You look quite ridiculous

What are you wearing now?

Who are you wearing that for?

I’m embarrassed by you anyhow

You’ve put on a few pounds

Don’t you eat that junk

You’re just being lazy

You should go for a run

You cannot control me with

Your insidious ways

I will find a way out and

I’ll be gone, gone gone

Generous but with a catch

I wield my power over you

Do anything you want to babe

As long as I want that thing too

You can’t light the fire

You can’t mow the laws

You can’t take my car out

Don’t go talking on the phone too long

Much too little much too late

You can’t choose to love half way

Once the love has left the building

There’s no way it’s coming back

The day you wouldn’t stop the car

You laughed at me & my guitar

Bitter taste upon the tongue

You see fault in everyone

Now I just feel sad for you

Living in the world you do

Not enough love and all the lack

Everything you do comes back

They said you punched above your weight

Which now I can appreciate

I genuinely wish you well but

I hope you treat the next one well

Please treat the next one well