When will the sky be as blue
As blue as it was then when we were up in Kerikeri
Driving up highway one / Winding road towards the sun / Row of skinny legs across the back /
Leave the road use the beach / Pass sunken cars on nature’s street / Ninety miles of freedom in my eyes
'Kerikeri' (out Feb 7) is the lead single from Melbourne based singer-songwriter Lucille’s upcoming debut LP “Come On, Fly”, which will be released on March 27. 'Kerikeri' is about nostalgia and that magical time in childhood where, even if just for a fleeting moment, things felt whole and full of light-heartedness and wonder.
It’s a country song, but not in the way you may imagine – it is country rhythmically, but the vocals and harmonies are unexpected and don't fit the country mould. Instead, there’s almost a jazz-pop feel to the harmonies, with the organic boot stomping and loose, raw guitar sounds creating a relaxed holiday jam feel. The lyric video for 'Kerikeri' features the imaginative imagery we’ve come to expect from Lucille (see previous singles 'The Killing Season' & 'Best Of Me') and captures the sense of wonder and beauty that her childhood holiday haunt holds in the songwriter’s heart. Check it out below.
'Kerikeri' is in Northland, the tip of NZ’s North Island, where the weather is warmer than in Lucille’s childhood home of New Plymouth, and it was her family’s perfect holiday destination. As Lucille explains: "Kerikeri is a bit of a gateway to that whole Northland area. There's Ninety Mile Beach which is a national highway. Anyone can use it as a road. If your car breaks down though, by the time you get back to it, it has probably sunk into the sand. When I was a kid, spotting the sunken cars was part of the fun. In the eighties, breaking down was part of travel…at least my family’s cars. There are lots of mandarin orchards up there. Pipis are clam shellfish that live in the tide zone, at low tide you hunt them by spotting their bubbles and you dig them out, or use a pipi harvester which is basically a suction pipe. They are delicious. You go fishing. You eat the fish fresh that day, on a fire on the beach.”
“All in all it is a paradise and looking back to how I felt as a child it was all sunlight. I'm sure most of us have that special place we can think of. It's like a feeling where over time you feel like your vision has dulled, and you can't see the colours like you saw them back then. There was yellow sand, and blue sky like I can't see it now. That is what it feels like anyway.”
“I call Australia home, but going to NZ also feels like going home. Everything is very familiar to me every time I go back and I have childhood memories from all over the country. I am a dual NZ/Australian citizen.”
Liner Notes:
Words and Music © Lucille l Vocals – Lucille | Drums - Jonathan Wright | Bass - Mitch Cairns | Acoustic Guitars - Shannon Bourne, Mitch Cairns | Hammond - Dan Biederman | Backing Vocals - Olivia Nathan, Lucille | Piano - Mitch Cairns | Percussion - Jono Wright, Mitch Cairns, Lucille
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