I may have mentioned before that I stumbled upon Emily James when I received an email with the title “If you love crying to sad-girl folk music…” and as most of you know, I really do. I was especially intrigued by Emily’s latest release Summer Nostalgia as it builds on her previous EP by the same name, adding six fresh tracks to take this to a full-length album, so we caught up with Emily to ask a few questions about how this new iteration of Summer Nostalgia came about.
Suzie: Hi Emily, thanks so much for taking the time to answer some questions about your upcoming album. It’s a lovely collection of songs.
Emily: Thank you so much!! I am so grateful to get to talk to you about it 🙂
Firstly, I was curious about how the album came about. From my understanding, you’re taking 6 tracks from your EP and adding 6 more to create the album. What made you approach the album in this way, rather than just releasing a second EP or starting from scratch with a new concept?
When I’m wrapping up a project, there is almost always this point at which I feel a sense of closure, and am ready and excited to shift into the next thing. With the Summer Nostalgia EP, that feeling didn’t materialize. In fact, I felt sad to be leaving this world and aesthetic that I had built with that project. I had written so many songs while creating that EP, and it felt like there was still more story to be told and filled out, so it only felt right to expand the EP into a full length album. The EP told the major plot points of the story; these two people getting entangled in young love, moving apart, and then finding their way back to each other. The additional songs on the album get a bit more into the nitty gritty of the details and emotions involved, as well as providing an epilogue of sorts. I think of it like the movie version vs. the book version of a story. The narrative is the same but you’re getting more description and filling in the blanks.
And, did all of the songs on the current album exist in some form or other at the time of the EP or have they been written since it’s release?
All of the album’s songs had been written by the time the EP was released. They were all written in LA and London, apart from Uncommon Sense, which was the only one I wrote in New York. There are a few dozen more songs that are sitting in the archives that didn’t make the cut / didn’t fit in the storyline. Maybe one day some of those will see the light of day.
I’ve listen to the album quite a few times now, and I think there’s a lot of emotions running through it and a lot of ways to interpret the album whether it’s looking at the journey of romance and relationships, or the nostalgic element of looking back on a different time or even as a reflection on just growing up. When you listen back to the finished project what does it mean to you?
Ah that makes me so happy to hear, and it’s exactly what I intended. The kinds of movies and music that resonate with me the most are those that have one meaning at the surface, and then on your second watch or listen, you realize there is a secondary meaning that lies below. That was my intention with this project; for it to be heard, on the surface, as a love story between two people who grow up together, grow apart, and find their way back to each other. But beyond that, it is a story about returning to an old place as a new person, and all of the memories, questions, and emotions that come along with that.
As I said above, a lot of the album is quite nostalgic, and I think it’s fair to say you’re looking back to the past quite a lot? How does it feel revisiting those things and writing songs about things that happened a while ago? Is it difficult to retain an emotional connection with the events, and is it easier to reflect on things once some time has passed?
I didn’t realize what I was writing about or why, until I was picking out which songs I wanted to be on the EP. It was all spurred from my decision to move back to New York after spending nearly a decade away, and my subconscious was taking me back to who I was at the time that I had left, reflecting on that, but also projecting into the future what it would feel like to be back and to run into people from my past. I typically need time and space away from an experience or emotion before I can write about it; it’s like I need to zoom out and be able to look at the feeling from an outsider’s perspective as opposed to being engulfed in it.
Alongside the storytelling, something that really struck me about the album is the delivery of the lyrics. You often use these shorter, almost staccato phrases with like a little space between them. I found that made me really listen to each word, and then when that pattern changed, and a line runs away a little with itself, it made me really start considering what that means. In Song for Bryan, as an example, lines such as “cause every time I get a little bit tipsy I start sinking” it’s almost like you want to rush through that memory, or like something has unraveled and you just have to get it all out. Maybe I’m looking far too deeply at this, but if you know what I’m talking about, could you share a little about the songwriting process behind this? Is it a deliberate choice and does my interpretation match the intent behind it?
I love that interpretation so much. I wouldn’t say it’s intentional, but as an English major what I’ve learned about the creative process, through my own writing as well as deep analysis of other people’s writing, is that we often make these creative decisions because they feel right. When I’m writing a song I let whatever words, melodies, and phrasing come through however they naturally want to and then fine tune from there. We may not know at that time why they feel right, and it isn’t until afterwards when we’re looking back at it that we’re able to intellectualize it more and be like, oh okay that makes sense why I wanted to sing it that way.
And then I just wanted to ask about a couple of tracks that stood out to me on the album. I love Tommy, and I think you wrote and produced that one all by yourself? The whole album feels very personal, but do tracks like Tommy, where you’ve done almost everything yourself, feel even more personal? And how does the experience of doing that compare to the process of making a track with others, where you have like a produced or a co-writer to bounce ideas off?
Yes, Tommy is the one song on the album that I wrote and produced on my own. With the songs I make entirely on my own, it does definitely feel a bit more personal, because it is such an intimate process. However, I feel grateful that I’ve gotten to a place where I have found collaborators with whom I feel so comfortable, and trust so deeply, that writing with them feels almost the same as writing on my own. Songs like Uncommon Sense, Song for Bryan, Oranges, all feel very much like “me,” and a large part of that is my collaborators being really intentional about letting me explore the song and creating a space for it to flow out of me organically.
And the other track was Pretty 4Ever. A lot of the album is fairly introspective and often tinged with a little sadness, whereas Pretty 4Ever is a lot more upbeat and celebratory. Can you share a little bit more about this song and how it fits with the story you’re telling on Summer Nostalgia?
Yes, there is a tint of melancholy across this album, and I wanted a moment of relief from that, which is where Pretty 4Ever comes in. There is also a lot about romantic love and coming of age on this album, and I think friendships and platonic love are a huge part of both of those things. I would not have been able to get through my romantic relationships, or grow into the person I am today without my strong, beautiful, smart, wonderful friends who surround me and keep me grounded. Pretty 4Ever is to say, through it all, we will always have each other’s backs and heal each other.
Thanks again for your time.
Thank you so much, this was lovely! I hope that when listening to this album, it feels like a warm hug, and that you can see pieces of yourself in it. Thank you for listening and allowing me to share this with you <3
You can listen to Summer Nostalgia here and find out more about Emily James here.