Premiere: Maggie Chapman's 'Sweatshirt'

Maggie Chapman's Sweatshirt, premiering at Paste BN, grew out of a conversation the 17-year-old Nashville singer-songwriter had with her best friend.

It seems this friend, also named Maggie, had a sweatshirt an old sort-of-boyfriend had lent her one cold night by the lake. Things between the two of them ended badly, but she still had the shirt, and she wasn't sure what to do with it.

"She told me, 'I want to give it back, but I don't want him to think I was holding on to it because I want him back, or that I'm giving it to him because I want an excuse to see him,'" Chapman says.

All the while, Chapman, her ears ever tuned to a potential song material, was taking mental notes.

By the time Chapman had reworked the story for her own purposes, the sweatshirt had become "a symbol of not being able to let go of a guy," and the girls who kept it in the back of her car still liked to put it on occasionally and wonder if her old boyfriend missed it. "By the time you give it back," Chapman says, "that's you letting go."

Chapman figures a lot of girls have similar sweatshirts, so she's partnering with Nashville's Oasis Center for The Sweatshirt Campaign. The month-long effort encourages people to donate gently used and new sweatshirts to the organization, which provides community-based care for youth in crisis.

Sweatshirt will appear on Chapman's debut album, Vignette, out Sept. 16,