Josephine Sillars is a Scottish songwriter, now based in Leeds, who is releasing a new EP called Desperate Characters on March 26. For each track on the EP, Sillars conducted an interview with someone and used that as a jumping-off point to write a song around. Today she releases new track “California”, which spawned from a worker in the oil industry, as she explains:
“‘California’ is a song inspired by the Climate Emergency. His interview was probably the most surprising of them all, I was already working on the song and then in September last year I saw the terrifying, but incredible photographs of San Francisco during the wildfires, with the sky completely orange, and the song came together almost immediately from there.”
With a feathery Rhodes piano forming the glistening undercurrent of the song, “California” finds Sillars slipping down a wormhole of worries related to images she’s seeing in the news. Her voice is fearful but unwavering as she relates the striking imagery: “out of the orange coloured sky we can no longer see the stars / and California looks like Mars.” She relives memories of sunny days she enjoyed, admits to being culpable of “doing the best for ourselves”, and the effect it’s had on some parts of the UK – but she can’t escape the horrifying facts that are undeniably presenting themselves through the raging wildfires. Sillars doesn’t attempt to proselytise or urge people to action, she remains pensive and benumbed, allowing us to simply think alongside her. The insertion of a clip from her interview with the oil worker offers some hope, but ultimately “California” is a song of mortal and global worry rendered in gorgeously empathic tones.
Josephine Sillars’ new EP Desperate Characters comes out on March 26. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
