Sheffield’s Gia Ford has shared her striking new single ‘Alligator’.
Word of mouth hype in her home city indicates that Gia Ford is pretty special, playing cafes and bars around the city. Snapped up by Chrysalis Records, she’s set to play Self Esteem’s ultra-special Sheffield show this weekend.
New single ‘Alligator’ is out now, a superb distillation of her influences. You can hear aspects of Nick Cave’s brooding torch songs in her work, alongside a penchant for Fleetwood Mac at their deliciously dark best.
There’s a vein of originality, however, with Gia Ford pushing her own voice high above those reference points. The lyric yearns for emotional validation, with the songwriter urging others to accept her feelings as being real.
Beautiful but also flecked by intensity, ‘Alligator’ is a fine start from a bold talent. She says…
‘Alligator’ is a song about a desperation to be seen and heard. I am being facetious by painting myself as multiple unbelievable creatures to garner attention. In the opening statement, I am an Alligator. Then, when that goes ignored, I am “Ten feet off of the ground, with feathers” — a whole new creature, perhaps still the Alligator, perhaps something different.
The emotionally human nature in the first lines of verse two; “too far along now, I wouldn’t even know how to turn around” sees the Alligator swimming through a broken and contaminated landscape that it is getting used to and triumphantly withstanding. In the chorus, the final line “Albatross in the sky, aim my crossbow in the night” is a reference to ‘Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner’ by Coleridge. In the poem, the mariner is cursed after he shoots down the bird; it represents a self-inflicted burden.
Tune in now.
Photo Credit: Melanie Lehmann