Rising Lebanese-Australian singer-songwriter Antoun is preparing to release his deeply personal new single, “I Can’t Wait”, on Friday, 19 June 2026, offering listeners an intimate reflection on love, fatherhood, and the emotional journey of waiting to meet a first child.

Known for his heartfelt songwriting and emotionally honest performances, Antoun has continued to build a name for himself as one of Australia’s emerging voices, capturing national attention through Australian Idol 2025 and later connecting with audiences through original releases such as “For You” and “Prison of Mind”.

With “I Can’t Wait”, Antoun turns his focus to one of the most profound moments of his life: becoming a father for the first time.

The song explores the emotional space before fatherhood fully begins — that strange and powerful moment when a man knows he is about to experience a love unlike anything he has felt before, but has not yet reached the moment of holding his child in his arms.

“It’s about the emotional journey of a first-time father stepping into a completely unknown kind of love,” Antoun explains. “You know you’re going to love this child more than anything — but you haven’t felt it yet. It’s not like the love for a spouse or a parent. It’s something you’ve been told is bigger than anything you’ve ever experienced, and you’re standing at the edge of it, waiting.”

For Antoun, that emotional edge became the heart of the song.

The inspiration behind “I Can’t Wait” came from his wife’s pregnancy with their first child. While she experienced the pregnancy physically and immediately, Antoun found himself beside her, deeply involved and emotionally present, but still outside of an experience he could only witness from the edge.

“The moment our baby started growing inside her, she became a mother — instantly, physically, completely,” he says. “She felt the first kick. She carried the weight, the pain, the sleepless nights. She literally felt two heartbeats — one of them her own. I was right there beside her, and yet I was on the outside of something profound.”

That feeling created what Antoun describes as a “beautiful jealousy” — not jealousy in a bitter sense, but a longing to understand and feel the bond his wife was already experiencing.

“I wanted to feel what she felt,” he says. “That longing is what became this song.”

Rather than writing “I Can’t Wait” only from his own perspective, Antoun chose to build the song around the intersection of two experiences: his wife’s physical journey into motherhood and his own emotional journey into fatherhood.

“I knew from the start I didn’t want this song to only be about me,” he explains. “So I wrote it from the intersection — what she was experiencing, and me watching, waiting, nine months away from feeling it myself.”

One of the most touching elements of the song’s production is the inclusion of the baby’s actual heartbeat. Antoun recorded the heartbeat and wove it into the song, allowing it to help drive the tempo and give the track a living, deeply personal pulse.

Sonically, “I Can’t Wait” has been crafted to feel weightless — somewhere between a modern record and a lullaby. It carries the emotional intimacy of a private letter, while still feeling universal enough to resonate with anyone who has waited for life to change in a way they could not yet fully understand.

“I wanted it to feel like something I could one day play for him and say: this is what I felt before I even met you,” Antoun says.

The song also gives voice to a side of fatherhood that is rarely discussed publicly. While pregnancy is often, and rightly, centred around the mother’s physical and emotional experience, Antoun’s song gently opens space for men to speak about the uncertainty, longing, and vulnerability they may feel before becoming fathers.

“Growing up, I never once heard a man talk about what it feels like before you become a father — that uncertainty, that strange emptiness of not knowing what the love will feel like or how it will hit you,” he says.

Through “I Can’t Wait”, Antoun hopes to speak directly to men who are preparing to become fathers and may not yet have the words for what they are feeling.

“I wanted to tell them: it’s okay to feel lost in that. It’s okay not to know yet. Because what’s coming for you is going to be extraordinary.”

With its emotional honesty, personal storytelling, and tender production, “I Can’t Wait” is more than a song about expecting a child. It is a tribute to pregnancy, partnership, fatherhood, and the quiet transformation that begins long before birth.

For Antoun, it is also a love letter to his wife, his child, and the moment before everything changes.

“I Can’t Wait” will be released on Friday, 19 June 2026.

Listeners can pre-save the song now via:
https://onerpm.link/264115223100