Salem Māhia Turns Grief Into a Song for Anyone Who Has Loved and Lost

Grief doesn't always show up with big drama. Sometimes it just sneaks in quietly and sticks around, especially in families. It's in the stories people tell over and over because they don't want anyone to be forgotten. It's in the photos everyone looks at, in the way people say a name softly because love is still there, and in that weird pain of missing someone you barely got to know. For Salem Māhia, those feelings turned into music. His new song, A Girl Named Abigail, is all about his auntie, a personal tribute full of love and missing someone special. “I wanted to pay tribute,” Salem says. “To honour her and her life. She was an incredible person.” That's what the song is really about: remembering someone. Salem uses music to hold on to those memories, almost like lighting a candle for her.

Although the song is intensely personal, the spark that helped Salem write it came from a story many people have been moved by. After watching the film We Live in Time, a story shaped around love, illness, and the devastating process of losing someone, Salem found himself drawn into the emotional landscape of his own grief. The film did not create the feeling. It simply opened the door to something already waiting inside him. While Salem does not usually write directly from films, this moment reached him differently. It became a mirror. Through someone else’s story of love and loss, he found a way back into his own. The film offered a language for something deeply personal, and Salem turned that language into music. Most of his songwriting comes from lived experience. He writes from the world around him, from the things that trouble him, move him, and stay with him long after the moment has passed.

Through live performances, Salem has witnessed the way a song can reach someone before they have even found words for their own pain. People have come up to him after gigs and told him his songs made them cry. “My goal for my music is to write lyrics that connect with people,” he explains. “To connect with people on a deeper, more personal level.”  “I hope people feel a sense of comfort,” he says. “Loss is part of life. Whether the person is young or old, it’s a really painful process.” Salem’s song gives that pain permission to exist. He hopes listeners understand that grief does not need to be rushed, hidden, or made presentable for other people. There is no perfect timeline for learning how to live with a wound that love left behind. “It’s okay that they’re going through the pain,” he says. “It’s okay to feel sadness and grief, because that’s a normal emotion.”

The music video adds another emotional layer to the release. The video is stripped back, focused on him performing the track and allowing the emotion to speak without distraction. “That was the vibe I wanted to bring,” he says. “To show the raw footage of me playing it and feeling the emotion while I play it.”Watching Salem perform it feels like watching someone hold a memory in both hands, careful not to drop it, but brave enough to show it to the world.

His family’s reaction has made the track even more meaningful. Salem says his mum, his grandmother, and his wider family loved the song and appreciated that it was written as a tribute to his auntie. “They all loved the song, and they loved that it was a tribute to her,” he says. This song is not only for the public. It is also for the people who knew his auntie, who loved her, who still feel her absence in the fabric of their family. It is for those who hear the song and know exactly who it is holding. In that sense, Salem has created more than a release. He has created a memorial you can press play on.

Even though Salem is still young, he has already experienced moments that have shaped his path as an artist. From Rockquest to Play It Strange, his journey has placed him in rooms and opportunities that once may have felt far away. Looking back, he describes those milestones with gratitude. “There have been moments in my music career where I’ve felt so lucky to be here,” he says. Music has been part of his life for as long as he can remember. By Year 9 or Year 10, he realised it was not just something he enjoyed. It was something he could not imagine being without. “I’ve always loved music,” he says. “Music has always been my favourite thing in the world.” Writing was already part of who he was, and music gave that writing somewhere to live. His guitar became a constant presence in his life, something he carries with him not just physically, but emotionally. “I can’t imagine my life without music,” he says. “I can’t imagine my life without playing my guitar. I’m always playing my guitar somewhere. I take it wherever I go.”

For young people wanting to make music, Salem’s advice is to keep going. He knows what it feels like to be judged. He knows what it feels like to share something personal online and wonder if people will laugh. In high school, he was made fun of for doing music and posting on social media. But he kept choosing the music anyway. “Don’t feel like you have to be embarrassed about it,” he says. “Don’t let other people’s comments dictate how you act.” That advice carries weight because Salem is proof of it. The very thing people once mocked has become the thing that allows him to reach others. His confidence has been built slowly, through gigs, competitions, social media, and the courage to keep showing up.

One of the most unexpected moments in Salem’s journey came through TikTok. A video he posted when he was younger suddenly went viral, reaching around a million views and leading to a conversation with Stan Walker. The advice Stan gave him has stayed with him ever since: “Be staunch.” For Salem, those words became something to carry into the industry and into himself. “Be staunch and be confident,” Salem says. “Don’t let the industry pull me down.” And Salem is looking forward. He says there is a lot of new music on the way, with hopes of releasing an album soon. He is working with people he is excited about and continuing to build a career that already carries a rare emotional honesty.