Mick Rochford is an Ireland based singer and songwriter who spent years behind a drum kit before building a solo career. “Loving You,” the first release from his forthcoming album, catches a relationship at its most awkward point: the affection is still there, and so is the growing sense that the two people need to part. Rochford gives that private conflict a public backdrop.

Photographs and cheerful captions can keep telling one story while the people in them live another. It is a familiar subject, though the detail that matters here is his reluctance to turn either partner into a villain. He stays with the pull of wanting someone back, even as the same arguments and disappointments keep bringing them to breaking point. The song follows Rochford’s debut album, I’ve Got Something to Say, and his earlier single “Sticks and Stones,” which dealt with bullying.