Grace Elizabeth Harvey is a singer-songwriter, guitarist and cellist from Merseyside and her new single ‘Birdsong’ demonstrates the rolling finger picking style that will be familiar to fans of Joni Mitchell or Nick Drake. The complexity of this style falls away as the repeated pattern creates a hypnotic susseration; like sitting by a river or a fire. This allows the tune to sail over the top like the birds in the title. Harvey’s voice is intimate and so well recorded it feels like you are sitting right next to her. The timbre is soft with a slight hint of smoke and the moments when the voice breaks effortlessly into falsetto is worth playing the song on repeat alone as is the tiny slice of cello that appears like a shaft of sunlight near the end of the song.
Sometimes simplicity is intoxicating, and ‘Birdsong’ is a beautiful example how leaving the lily un-gilded allows the song, and the singer, to dazzle with its perfection.
‘Birdsong’ is taken from the forthcoming Other Faith EP which is released on May 9th and can be pre-ordered from Bandcamp as a download or limited edition 10″. Main photograph taken by Jay Chow.
Grace Elizabeth Harvey Socials: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | YouTube
LYRICS:
I sang to a bird today and it sang to me back
I think I convinced it that I have all I lack
I was calling out it’s name
a connection all the same
on the brink
Just as a familiar song our echo would become
I think that it saw me basking in the sun
An alien, a stranger
That doesn’t know the ways
Of being a bird in nature
and singing every day
That cold good bye, and watchful eye
I never will forget
The day me and that poor bird met
I don’t know why
I always feel that I
Am lonesome beyond repair
I’m a song bird that will never reach the air
I took off my winter clothes and let the summer come
Nature all around me, but grounded by my thumbs
The birds they knew my weakness
That I was earth bound, wingless in their world
And all of my sun soaked days I couldn’t help but think
When was it that humans began to go and sing
My second voice my freedom
That seems to cross the line
Between the other creatures
And us the human kind
That sad divorce and my remorse
For being all too wise
To sing, but to never know why
I do know that I
Wish that I could also fly
And I’m lonesome beyond belief
As I’m a songbird that will never take the leap.
Review by Paul F Cook
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