Sophie Janna’s artist bio says that she makes music that “makes you forget where you are.” While I have to agree, I would add that it makes me dream about where I might go next.
Everything about this new release evokes wide open spaces, beguiling open roads, unlimited horizons. There’s the title of course, but it goes deeper than that. There’s the artwork, a print made by Janna herself, of swans gliding over an anonymous countryside. There’s the video, a time-lapse shot of what looks like a European city. There’s the soft, rhythmic whooshing of water in the background that brings to mind a canoe trip.
Even the song’s recording has a travel-related backstory. Janna, who is from Amsterdam, was on her way to Spain but got stranded in France after that country’s first pandemic lockdown. She stayed in Paris for a week with some friends, and recorded her upcoming EP during that time.
I’ve never been much of a traveler, but with 18 locked-down months behind me and this song in my head, I’m ready to go.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. Despite being written by a Dutch musician and recorded in France, there’s a real Irish folk influence here. You could imagine her singing it atop a green hill just outside Dublin, while Hozier looks on approvingly.
2. There’s virtually no instrumentation supporting the voices, but there is a subtle synth pad humming away in the background, especially audible at 2:08, that gives the recording a wider sense of space.
3. For all its implications of a wide world, she somehow manages to achieve the intimacy that makes the best folk music so effective. It probably comes from the imagery in the opening line: “I was awake / and you were asleep.” With that one simple setup line, the song becomes an intimate secret; a desire to travel, yes, but a hidden desire to travel with someone who might not stick around long enough for that dream to be realized.
Recommended listening activity:
Finding a place with your name in it, and making secret plans to go there.