Talented singer-songwriter Rosalie has one of the purest and most charming voices we’ve ever heard and she left us stuck on repeat with her honest emotional song “There Used To Be Four”. She wrote this song about processing the loss of her father. Her lyrics are so touching and her performance is very professional. The atmosphere of this song is very unique and the production is simple and beautiful. Rosalie is a creative artist and her music is honest and sets her apart from the crowd. We are very excited to see where Rosalie’s career will go over the coming months!
WHAT THE ARTIST SAYS ABOUT THE SONG:
I think grief is the trickiest emotion. After losing someone you love, you think that you are finally doing ok. But then, out of nowhere, it bursts out of you like a waterfall. Like a downpour you didn’t see coming.
I lost my dad over five years ago now, and on the day that I wrote There Used To Be Four, I don’t think I set out to write about him. I actually don’t remember a lot about the write if I’m being honest. I think that’s partly because this is a song that wanted to be written. It’s like it wrote me. It’s like the grief had something to say.
What I do remember is that it started when I was alone in my studio during quarantine. I think the chords might have come first, and then my intuition guided me from there. A lot of times I have an idea for a song concept idea and write to a title, but this one was different. This song unfolded and came together piece by piece, almost like the slide show that I sing about.
The image I kept seeing in my mind while writing the song was me sitting on the floor watching a slideshow of my dad’s old pictures, and crying because of the flood of memories. My dad was a photographer. He filmed and photographed absolutely everything. I remember being a little kid and him playing us slide shows of his photos, which is why I included the projector sounds in the background. The sounds in the song weave in and out – also like a slide show – each one a memory. I didn’t understand the importance of pictures as a kid, but now that he’s gone, I’m just so grateful he recorded everything.
After spending six months alone, I spent six months quarantining back home with my family. I used that time to comb through about 40 hours of my dad’s home video footage – barely scratching the surface – to pull audio samples that I could incorporate. I grabbed anything I might be able to use, imported them into Logic, and then laid in the samples that I felt told more of the story. So in that way, the audio samples are also like lyrics.
Emotions rise to the surface when the water is still. The ones we try to run from, the ones we are afraid to feel if we ever stop moving, the ones we may not even be aware of. In this way, this song feels like a sonic diary. A healing session. Like echoes of grief ringing in underground caverns.
This song is for my dad. It’s for my family. It’s for the little girl whose voice you hear. I want to do right by them and by her. I also hope that somehow, by me telling my story, it helps others who know this kind of loss. This song is for you. Grief connects us all in some bittersweet way.
Sending you love, because at some point, we all feel the downpour.
ABOUT THE ARTIST:
AFTER ALMOST FAINTING ON STAGE…
she fell into her friend’s arms as she stepped off, and knew something was wrong. What she didn’t know is that it would take a year for doctors to finally figure it out; and that it would take her years to feel like herself again. Somewhere between holding onto walls to walk and feeling like there was a brick in her brain, Rosalie realized that she couldn’t sing anymore. Once she was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition, she slowly regained her vibrance and hoped that her voice would find its way back to her. It didn’t.
Rosalie wondered if she would ever be able to sing again. After years of voice therapy – like a musician learning to walk again – she thankfully started to regain her vocal strength and whispery character. The difference was that it had the depth and richness of someone who had been to hell and back.
Prior to getting sick, Rosalie was living in Los Angeles as a folk singer/songwriter, had been named an iHeartRadio Artist to Watch, was playing notable venues such as Hotel Cafe and The Roxy, and received her first major sync placement on Ghost Whisperer. But everything came to a grinding halt when she got sick. Between relapses and flare ups, healing took years; when she finally did recover, she had to start from scratch and climb her way up again. Following the guidance of her intuition, she moved to Nashville for a fresh start, where she humbly started playing open mics as a way to get her performance chops back and figure out why she felt Nashville calling to her.
Along the way, through co-writing and being immersed in the music Nashville has seeping out of every crevice, Rosalie felt a strong pull to explore the rich sonic landscape of current pop music. The results are left-of-center pop that merges the accessibility of catchy melodies, the adventure of programmed beats, the honesty and emotional vulnerability of folk, and the lyrical craft found in Nashville’s unique approach to songwriting.
