earthgirl

hi im sam. welcome to the world of my project earthgirl

[earthgirlonline]

Visit Original Link

at the time that i wrote "i wish," i had been in different songwriting sessions everyday with different producers and different writers in LA....despite writing tons of songs i remember feeling that everything i wrote felt devoid of any kind of real feeling or meaning. i knew i had something to say, but i felt like my music wasn't saying anything at all. it felt derivative. and tbh kinda soulless. 

but something changed last july when my best friend and co-writer eva had told me about a producer she had recently worked with named chris. she had said he was really talented and might be a great fit for my project. despite being exhausted by the LA songwriting culture, i trusted her. and we booked a week to work together. 

the drive to chris' house is a long one. it's about 30-45 minutes away from where eva and i live, so we treated the ride there like a roadtrip. we picked up diet cokes and clif bars on the way, queued up a playlist full of ethel cain and sylvan esso, and hopped on the highway.

i remember pulling up to chris' house in the valley, completely unaware of what i wanted to make. all i knew is that he had a really cute dog named bowie. and that i didn't want to start with a reference or a lyric or a concept that day, i just wanted to see what flowed out of us. so, chris laid down a synth line, and eva and i began to freestyle melodies.

eva and i each went back and forth on the mic, word vomiting whatever ideas popped into our heads. eventually, i spat out a monotoned melody paired with a very conversational lyric, "i guess i wish that you loved me, the way that i loved you, the way that i wanted." 

i remember turning to eva and saying, "i weirdly love that line so much, but we can't use it. it's too simple." she looked at me like i was insane and said, "girl, it's not too simple. it's fucking awesome." so we kept it. 

we wrote the rest of the hook in a few minutes. eva dropping in genius, poetic descriptors like "decorative garbage" to complement the very literal nature of the rest of the hook's lyrics. and in about an hour, we had the shell of a song. 

this is a voice memo of the first recording i ever did of the chorus. in hindsight, it's pretty crazy to think that the song really didn't change much. we kept this melody, almost all of the lyrics, and chris' iconic synth line (which ended up anchoring the entire track). we even kept the ad lib that i did in this take and turned it into the post chorus. 

i remember this day so vividly. because for the first time in a long time, i didn't feel like what i was making was soulless. in fact, i felt the complete opposite. it was full of heart. in a way that was so visceral. so raw. and so real. 

we listened to this voice memo the entire drive back from the valley. i was glad it was a long ride home.

sam xx 

[earthgirlonline]

hi

hi guys. sam here.

ive been desperately trying to figure out the best way to tell the story of my next project, earthgirl. which is not only a group of songs, but a cohesive narrative i have been building for months.

ive been trying to find a pretty way to say this, but im just gonna go ahead and explain this in layman's terms. im at a really weird phase in both my life and my career, where i sometimes feel on track and other days i feel like the most irrelevant person in the world. i go from falling in love with the project i have created, to wanting to scrap it entirely because i feel it will never be good enough.

lately, ive honestly just felt rlly fking discouraged. ive wanted to give up and quit and scream cry into a pillow and sit in my room with my cats and eat ice cream and watch my new favorite show a million little things all day long and only get up to pull tarot cards or to go pee or to get my other cat from the other room.

i'll admit, i've been hooked on feeling low.

this feeling really came to a head a few weeks ago when i released earthgirl, the first single off of my upcoming project of the same name. i have spent the past year putting everything i have into this project: every single song, the entire visual world, the narrative behind the project, the videos, the looks, the socials, the everything. i have spent countless nights putting together and pulling apart mood boards, stitching together song lyrics, musing with my best friend and collaborator eva over each melody and each metaphor until our brains hurt.

the project itself is dense. to the naked ear, it's a bunch of pop songs. but, what most (if not all) of you don't know is that it is actually a concept project about queerness. it is a cohesive narrative that follows a protagonist, earthgirl, as she attempts to find a "cure" for heartbreak. in doing so, she is transported to another dimension where she discovers new aspects of herself, her identity, and the lack thereof. (more on this later lol). i can't tell you what happens at the end. but you get the point.

this project is layered. and important to me. so this release felt high stakes. it represented the beginning of launching into a new phase of my artistry and self that felt raw and dynamic and real. before the release, i kept thinking...how delightful! what a beautiful and honest representation of myself as an artist...the world will surely love it!

but no! not one press outlet agreed to cover the song. not one person agreed to interview me. not one streaming service playlisted it. it was a uniquely humbling experience and i was honestly devastated. and embarrassed. i had put so much pressure on the earthgirl release in my mind, i think because i had never cared about any piece of art so much. and i had never made anything so honest. and it all felt so visceral and real.

ultimately, i was just so fkn frustrated because i didn't feel i was provided with the opportunity to even tell my story. no one would give me the time of day. and i didn't get why. all i could think to myself was...is this song just trash? is the story not compelling? am i fr just an irrelevant rando with mush for a brain?

so for a few weeks i felt rlly bad for myself and wanted to quit music. but ppl told me i couldn't. and eventually, i came to agree with them. and i stopped feeling bad for myself, got out of bed, turned off a million little things, put my tarot cards away, and i locked in.

basically, i decided: i don't need an opportunity to tell my own story. i just have to tell it. and what better way to do that, than on tumblr.

so here i am going direct to source. im going to tell you this story—my story—chapter by chapter. the way i want to tell it.

from now on, this is going to be a landing page where you guys can dive into the world of earthgirl and better understand its every layer, every lyric, every visual. its a place where we all can discuss, theorize, ask questions. ideate. realize. (all of which are some of my FAVORITE THINGS to do).

it's going to be a long story. but i think it's a good one.

more soon. xx

sam