Fruit

‘Fruit’ is my attempt at understanding the feelings that always boil inside me on those first few warm days after winter. I love winter, I’m massively into tea and rugging up and staying home, and though it came with its pitfalls and turmoil, lockdown suited my lifestyle nicely. I wonder if staying indoors for two years made these summer-anxiety feelings get a bit worse?

So what does summer mean to me? As a kid, summer meant school holidays, beach trips, and Christmas presents, but lately summers in Australia aren’t so uncomplicated. The world remembers the 2019 devastating fires, and my family and I were essentially trapped in a blacked-out, smoke-filled caravan park on Sydney’s south coast for two weeks in that period; you could barely breathe inside the car as we drove bumper-to-bumper through the charred landscape. In 2020 my week-long visit to Sydney over Christmas turned into an almost 2-month stay when the borders closed only a few days before Christmas, I felt lucky that my parents had a couch for me to sleep on. At least the strawberries are on sale.

Summer is a season I have mixed feelings about, and I’m glad that my panic around this time feels a bit like a manageable, but annoyingly leaky, tap, and not a broken and bursting faucet.

LYRICS

I’m not waiting for the sun
And I don’t wanna bring you down
It’s just the way I feel when this is where we are

And I don’t want to make it about me
I feel like I’m drifting carefully
So I don’t fall
So I

I’m glad we don’t get too far
I’m glad we don’t get too far away
I’m glad we don’t get too far
Before we wanna turn around

I’m grateful for the changes
And I’m grateful for the fruit
But there’s something in the air that’s got me
Feeling kinda blue
Maybe it don’t make sense how I feel
But I don’t wanna take away from the good I know is here

So why
Does everything gotta collide when I’ve been tryna work a bit at a time
Why
Does it never get better?
I’m always a mess when you arrive

I’m glad we don’t get too far
I’m glad we don’t get too far away
I’m glad we don’t get too far
Before we wanna turn around

CREDITS

Songwriting and Vocals by Ella Sterland

Produced by Renee Stein, Ella sterland and Jazz Johnston

Mixed by Craig Booth

Mastered by Panorama Mastering

Artwork by Ella Sterland

“Aptly for a track called ‘Fruit’ Bares has made the track sound so tender and lush. I’m really feeling this step into soulful territory – Bares isn’t wrong when she namedrops H.E.R and the radiant spirit of Nai Palm” – Dave Ruby Howe Triple J .

‘Fruit’ was written at the end of 2020 where I was going through a period of frantically writing as much as I could in order to feel like I had used the pandemic wisely. I noticed how unexplainable panicky I was feeling in warm weather, and the majority of the track came together in about 15 minutes. It gathering dust on a hard drive for almost exactly a year when I decided it was something I really wanted to share. It got a Renee designed musicological makeover, and was polished by my close friends Jazz and Craig, and I’m so proud of the shiny, glimmering result.