Graphic by Sarah McCrimmon
Paola Bennet’s favorite tarot card is the Ace of Cups, a card that represents joy and the intimate feeling of being enveloped in contentment. It’s a card about “letting yourself be loved and leaning into radical self-love.” This is something the singer/songwriter exudes through her work: ethereal, raw and honest music that has echoes of nostalgia and comfort. Bennet has recently passed into new territory with her most recent single, “My Mother Says,” and I got to sit down with her to discuss her music, creativity and progression as an artist.
Bennet’s journey into the music industry was a gradual evolution and “trickled in” throughout her childhood. She started with writing and performing original songs for her family (and charged a quarter for admission!), eventually graduating to writing and recording songs on her guitar as a teen. She gained momentum throughout college when she released her first three EPs and began performing live shows, overriding her shyness and establishing her place in the folk-pop genre.
Her recent singles “In This Body” and “My Mother Says” are the precursors to her future EP, “Maybe The Light” — her first substantial release in five years. They’re also a clear turning point away from the “sad girl folk” box she’s previously occupied. Bennet describes “My Mother Says” as “a little weirder — people say my voice is ‘haunting’ and ‘soothing,’ but this is a harder sound.” She described the ways she and her producer played with sound in “My Mother Says,” creating the atmospheric sounds in the beginning of the song by running her hands up and down the frets of a guitar. The song also includes samples of audio from home videos and snippets of conversations between her and her mother in French.
She also describes “My Mother Says” as more honest, if that’s possible. Bennet takes her normally candid lyricism to a new level, as this song was inspired by a particular conversation she had with her mother about depression and anxiety. It was hard for Bennet to be vulnerable about her mental illness with her cheery mother, who she describes as “avoir la pêche” or “having the peach,” similar to the way we use the English expression “peachy.” How do you share something so saddening with someone who is always so happy? “It was a little difficult to figure out how to tell her that kind of stuff without getting pushback or scaring her, it was like, ‘how much do I share?’.” This push and pull of struggle and vulnerability is clearly manifested in the way the slow, drifting verses alternate with a staccato and harsher chorus. The message of her song is most poignant in the triplet of lines that Bennet pointed out in our conversation: “I want an inch of kindness / I don’t know / Am I being spineless?” Thankfully, her family was receptive and supportive and she has seen a progression in how her family is able to handle the topic.
“In This Body” addresses a similarly difficult topic. Bennet developed chronic pain last year and struggled receiving a diagnosis or treatment for it. The song, as well as the music video created by Iris Lee, drives home the feeling of shame and isolation she felt while waiting for answers. “I didn’t want anything literal, like an actor laying on the bed surrounded by pill bottles, I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted it to have more dimension.” The video was filmed in Northern California during the early days of the pandemic. While Bennet wasn’t physically present for the shoot, she felt that Lee had perfectly captured the message of her song with the “The Bag” — a character whose face is covered by a brown paper bag. The bag represents a dunce cap in the sense of feeling like the odd one out, and also addresses the loss of identity Bennet encountered in her search for answers. She remembers “just waiting and waiting for something to happen.”
She takes on many more lighthearted projects, too. After encountering a duet she’d written between the sun and moon on her Instagram, I asked her about her creative process. “Sometimes I get what I call ‘the fever,’ the fever hits and it’s like, you’re in the zone and creating and everything’s there for you. Other times, you get up every day and create whether the inspiration is there or not.” Bennet did just that with her 30 songs in 30 days challenge, which she described as “something I wouldn’t take back but I’m glad I did it when I did.” Quarantine allowed her to put in the work each day, piecing parts of songs together “until the dam breaks and the rest of it comes out.”
I mentioned that her newest singles had made their way into my study playlist, something that pleased her as an artist. “I’m excited to have deep listeners, like people who analyze every single lyric, but it’s also nice to just be a part of someone’s soundtrack, a part of their life in a small way.” She expressed her excitement for her upcoming EP “Maybe the Light,” which drops May 21, as an opportunity to share more of her music with the world. You can check out her newest singles “In This Body” and “My Mother Says” in anticipation for her next project, and be sure to visit her Instagram. I’ll be over here, writing my essays to ethereal guitar sounds.