Some songs are written, recorded and released in the same season. Others wait years for the person who wrote them to be ready to share them.
For Far North Queensland singer-songwriter Nadine Cockrem, Ember is one of those songs. She wrote it more than 12 years ago while recovering from an emotionally abusive relationship. On 2 October 2026, it becomes her debut single.
The story behind “Ember”
Nadine describes Ember as a song about losing yourself inside a destructive love. Fire runs through its story: being lifted up, torn down, and left holding on to a small part of yourself. At its heart is the realisation that surviving someone’s love and being loved are very different things.
“No matter what I did, it never felt like enough, and somewhere along the way I lost myself trying to hold everything together.”
Nadine Cockrem
It’s a deeply personal place to begin a recording career, especially when the song has lived with its writer for more than a decade.
From a $40 guitar to a first single
Music found Nadine early. At 15, her dad taught her the first chords on an old $40 second-hand guitar. She learnt The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine as a promise to him in exchange for lessons, then went on to study with Mareeba guitarist Michael Aitken.
Growing up around horses and rural life on the Atherton Tablelands, Nadine later took her songs to country music festivals across North Queensland, including Charters Towers, Hughenden, Cloncurry and Walkamin. She performed at weddings and events, and joined a Cairns-based cover band that played from Cairns to Cooktown and Port Douglas.
Alongside the music, she was raising three young boys as a single mum and running a photography business. Life got busy and performing took a back seat, but the songwriting never stopped. The songs stayed in notebooks and on hard drives until she decided to make the five-song EP she had long wanted to record, working with producer Michael at Moko Productions.
Ember is the first of those songs to step out into the world. It marks the start of a new chapter for a songwriter who has been carrying these stories for years.
Save “Ember”
Nadine Cockrem’s “Ember” arrives 2 October 2026. Pre-save the single here and give it a listen when it lands.
Find more from Nadine on her website, Spotify artist page, Facebook and Instagram.
