CREATIVE CONVERSATIONS 139: LITTLE GREEN ON HEALING THROUGH MUSIC AND HER UPCOMING ALBUM
Interview by Brooke Gibbs.
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from the Blue Mountains, Little Green, has released her bold and deeply reflective new single. This new track draws inspiration from childhood memories and blends heartfelt lyricism with a pop edge, offering a raw glimpse into her healing journey.
FMM: We last caught up with you in February last year when you released your little star album. You’ve since put out another EP and you’re releasing new music, so what have you been up to since we last spoke?
Little Green: So, since we spoke, I have been working on lots more music. The EP following little star [Sincerely, Your Girlfriend] was about my first relationship with a girl and a lot of reflection came out of that relationship. I also got this grant to go to LA and write songs, so that was pretty exciting, and I’ve just been doing gigs.
FMM: The new track, Thank You For That comes out tomorrow, so how are you feeling? Are you having any celebrations?
Little Green: I am feeling lots of emotions and feeling excited that it will be out in the world, but I’m also feeling a little scared and a bit sad because of the emotions it brings up when I really think about what the song’s about. Mostly, I feel like I’m excited. It feels like a release every time I release a song. [Laughs]. It’s funny, it’s called a release, and it feels like an emotional release. And, I am celebrating by doing a cruise gig, so I will be relaxing a lot, and just soaking it all up in the sun.
FMM: A cruise gig sounds great, because you’re working, but also getting a bit of a holiday at the same time. Or, maybe it doesn’t feel like a holiday to you.
Little Green: Yeah, totally. It’s like a forced relaxation, which is great, because I’m really bad at relaxing, and the gigs are always really fun as well, so it’s a pretty sweet deal.
FMM: I totally relate to being bad at relaxing. I got a massage the other day, and the lady was telling me to just relax, and I’m like, ‘Dude, I am relaxing,’ and she said I wasn’t. I was like, ‘What do you mean I can’t relax?’
Little Green: Oh, my God, that’s hilarious.
FMM: Thank You For That is a song about the love and hurt we experience as kids. What are some reflections you had while writing this song?
Little Green: Well, I started reflecting on all the relationships in my life during my most recent relationship. Dating a girl for the first time is just this crazy experience, and so much came up. Since then, I’ve been reflecting on the way I love, and how we are all taught to love as kids.
FMM: If the person who inspired this song could listen to it, how would you hope they would respond?
Little Green: I picture us crying together. I would like it to be an acknowledgement between us of how we both feel and really see each other. I feel like it would ultimately bring more love between us, but it’s really hard to imagine that situation.
FMM: You’re known for writing personal songs, and you have a song called Mothers Daughter from a previous EP which is also about family and intergenerational trauma. You mentioned feeling a bit scared about this release, so how do you balance that feeling of being scared, knowing that people who knew you as a child may be able to hear this and know who it is about?
Little Green: Actually, I should clarify. Mothers Daughter was written in character which is my favourite way to write. But anyway, that’s not the question. How do I balance being scared with the desire to share? I’ve always been so emotional, so the need to get that out of me is stronger than any fear that holds me back from being honest. I think I’m just also really honest in my real life, so anything I put in an autobiographical song wouldn’t be something that I haven’t tried to express to people, you know?
I think the only hard bit is being honest with myself about how I really feel. That’s where I get confused because it’s just really hard to know how I feel sometimes, but once I get that, I don’t think I’m scared anymore. It’s like the scary part is just admitting it and then sharing it is the easy part. There is an element of wanting to protect the people around me because people do make assumptions about what the song’s about, who it’s about. People speculate. It would be great if they just sort of inserted themselves into the song and story and didn’t think about me at all. That would be ideal.
FMM: Thank You For That showcases a new sound, especially from albums like little star, but then we got a bit of that pop-y sound in the Sincerely, Your Girlfriend EP. What’s inspired the new sound and is this a new direction you’re going in?
Little Green: I think the new sound is inspired by my emotional growth. I used to be more gentle and scared to express anything negative. But then I did this acting workshop… we did an exercise where you had to get into the energy of aggression and I just started crying. I bawled my eyes out. I couldn’t do it, but something was released in that moment. It’s hard to explain. It’s like that moment opened me up and allowed me to make more loud, aggressive sounding music like pop and rock.
FMM: I like that you clarified on your Instagram story that the Thank You For That Spotify tracklist isn’t the tracklist for the album, because I was curious. I was going to ask why iridescent ghosts was making a re-appearance.
Little Green: Yeah, my team wanted to do it because it boosts streams, apparently. I was like, oh, that's gonna confuse people, but eventually I came around to the idea.
FMM: Yeah, and it says track list, so I thought maybe she just really likes iridescent ghosts. I think it’s good, especially if new people are discovering you through Thank You For That, and they don’t know your previous work, they can go back and discover your evolution and different sounds.
Little Green: Oh, that's what I should have said. That's the reasoning for it.
FMM: Thank You For That was written with a couple of your LA friends. How did that come about and how did you know they were the perfect fit?
Little Green: So, it was me, Randy and Savannah. Savannah asked what was missing from the album, story wise so I was like, well, I've written about all the relationships in my life except for the most impactful childhood relationship. And so I was like, well, we should write about that because that sort of gives context to the whole album and why I'm going through this now. It’s like these unhealed wounds just keep coming back until you heal them, so it was really important to write to give context to the album, but also to heal myself.
FMM: Does that also tie into the rest of the album? Or what can we expect from the bigger project next year?
Little Green: Yeah, the concept of the album is like the death of disillusionment, which to me, means acknowledging truths that you were really scared to look at before. I didn’t want to acknowledge the painful side of life and growing up and just being a flawed human being. It’s a more risky and more nuanced perspective of how I love.
FMM: As a songwriter, how do you protect yourself and your mental health when you have to revisit childhood memories from the perspective of your adult self?
Little Green: Oh, good question. How do I protect myself? Like, the writing is the therapy, so I think there's no need to protect my mental health there because my therapy is literally writing songs, and it always has been since I was young. But when it comes to sharing and reliving that trauma over and over again during the release stage, I don’t really know. I think my method right now is to disassociate, which is really bad. That’s not a good solution because I feel like I just have to detach in order to promote the song, but I don’t think that really serves the promotion either, so it’s hard. I think I'm still working on it.
On the practical side, if anyone is wanting mental health advice, I’ve been taking St.John’s Wort natural supplement and fish oil and it’s really improved my mental health, like a lot. Like, crazy amazing. It’s really quite simple. Take whatever you need to take like medication, or natural supplements, exercise and sleep. That’s how I would say I protect my mental health.
FMM: It’s always the simple things, but when you are in a mental health crisis or struggling, it’s so easy to forget the simple things.
Little Green: Yeah, 100 percent, because you feel like you don’t deserve it. It’s funny, since I started taking these supplements, it just feels like I’m taking care of myself and I deserve to feel good. It’s like a ritual.
FMM: You’re supporting Tash Sultana at Live At The Gardens. I love their music, you love their music, and you’ve talked about having a band for this gig. Can you tell me more about that and what you have planned? And how did you manifest that?
Little Green: How do I manifest? Oh my gosh, yeah, crazy actually. When I started Little Green, the goal was to open for Tash Sultana and this feels like a real full-circle moment. I guess the story is that during COVID, I entered a cover challenge and I covered their song, Beyond the Pine. I won, so I got to meet Tash and their team backstage. I got a signed guitar with a message on it. It was super cute and inspiring. I think a year later, I was posting songs online every single day. That’s when Lemon Tree, Tash’s management, reached out about managing me. So I was like, yeah, obviously you guys are like my dream team. I also got a personal call from Tash to ask if I wanted to be part of their booking agency, Lonely Lands, so those were very important steps to the dream. Now, it feels like years later, but finally the dream came true. It feels like the end of a chapter for Little Green. The sky’s the limit now, I think.
I really want to transport people through my music and perform. I don’t want it to just be me singing my songs to them, like, at them. I want it to be an experience. So that’s why I want to start playing with a band.
FMM: I feel like you’re good at creating that experience, even online when you do covers. I don’t know the technical term, but you’ve usually got the different screens going when you record a cover and one screen might be you playing the saxophone, another of you playing the flute, and then another of you singing the vocals, just involving people in that creative process.
Little Green: Yeah, thanks for saying that. That’s fun. I like doing that.
FMM: You just gave me some flashbacks. I totally forgot about that song of the day and as soon as you mentioned it, I was like, oh, my God, those were the days.
Little Green: [Laughs]. Those were the days.