Greta O’Leary unpacks the 21st Century Artist with intimate new single ‘Baby I’m a Singer’
Tāmaki Makaurau-based alt-folk artist Greta O’Leary today offers up a dark, yet dulcet new single and music video Baby I’m a Singer.
A lush and nostalgic blend of vivid imagery, stark vocals, bright guitars and haunting strings, Baby I’m a Singer waves hello in recognition to the fellow artist, offering a moment of respite from the hustling of the 21st century grind. “The futile nature of being an artist in today’s world, is that much of the necessary work takes one away from the true work: creating and enquiring,” says Greta.
Beyond its tongue-in-cheek commentary on the realities of pursuing a career in music, the nostalgic new single ponders the elements of our identities deemed “less valuable by capitalist standards.”
“Baby I’m a Singer is also about accepting all that I am. Impractical, soft, slow, disorganised, highly creative, deeply affected by my environment, and that is just as right and good as the qualities of any other person. It’s finding strength and clarity in my role in this life as an artist. A sort of deep acceptance of my fate.”
True to the nature of its message, Baby I’m a Singer was lovingly crafted through a soft and slow process of collaboration – Greta wrote the track with guidance and useful questioning from her mentor Tom Healy. After first working on a demo with Dave Khan, it was recorded at Roundhead Studios by De Stevens, before the track was finished at The Lab with Jol Mulholland, and then mastered by Joe Lambert. The all star studio band includes Dave Khan (guitar), De Stevens (bass), Hamish Morgan (drums) and Anita Clark (strings).
Also released today is a soothing, wintery music video to accompany the track, directed by Greta and filmed across the Auckland Domain with Adam Rohe (DOP). “I’ve always had a clear visual sense of this song, the colours and the mood – directing just made sense,” says Greta. “I’ve been in a romance with crooked, deciduous trees this winter, and Baby I’m a Singer lives with them in this cold, lovely, blue world.”
The stunning harbinger to a new chapter in the Greta O’Leary musical universe, and a defiant statement of the modern-day creative mind, Baby I’m a Singer is not a track to be missed!
