BIRDY: BIOG 2016
Since bewitching the nation at the age of 14 with her cover of Bon Iver’s
“Skinny Love,” Birdy has had to do a lot of growing up. While her
contemporaries have lived leisurely, teenage lives - studying, shopping,
socialising - this extraordinarilytalented 19-year-old has released two
albums, toured the world, performed at the Paralympics Opening Ceremony,
been nominated for a Brit Award (for British Female Solo Artist), written
songs for the hit movies The Fault in Our Stars and The Hunger Games, and
sung on Mumford & Sons’ Grammy-winning song “Learn Me Right” (part of thesoundtrack for the Pixar animation, Brave).A long list of international accolades include, Best International Female (Echo Awards, Germany 2013) and Best International Female (Principales, Spain 2014) and many more. She has accumulated over 413 million views on Youtube and sold over 10.5 millions records worldwide to date.
Five years into her career and now a young adult, Birdy has flown the nest and moved to London.This is a big change for this softly spoken girl who is happyto admit that she is naturally shy and not an obvious candidate for a life
in the limelight.
Now she is set to release her third LP, the elegant and evocative
Beautiful Lies, which is, she says, “about knowing yourself but also about
change and how we sometimes find it hard. For me moving away from home
feels strange and a bit scary, but then my life has been constantly
moving. The last few years have gone by in a blur. There have been times
when my friends have rung me and said ‘Where are you?’ and I’ve said, ‘I
don’t actually know’.”
If Birdy’s first self-titled album was all about interpretation and
finding her way as a singer, and her second, 2013’s Fire Within, saw her developing further and exploring her songwriting, her third comes with a clear vision and a desire toinvolve and immerse herself in every part of the process. Until now, Birdyhas allowed others to guide her but now she has climbed into the drivingseat, bringing with her a new clarity and determination.
“In the past I didn’t know how to take control,” she says. “Now I’m an
adult but then I was a child. Also I’m quite an introverted person but
I’ve learned to assert myself, to work out what I want and find a way to
make it happen.”
It was Birdy’s reading of the novel Memoirs of a Geisha, notably the
ferocious determination of the central character, which led to the album’s
Japanese theme, most audible in the opening track “Growing Pains”. This
Eastern influence is similarly evident in the cover image, photographed by
the U.S photographer Olivia Bee - who, coincidentally mirrored Birdy’s early start in her career at the age of 14, which finds the singer standing in the watery twilightin a red print kimono. “I loved reading about the atmosphere and landscapeof Japan and that’s what we were trying to evoke,” she reflects. “I hopeit will take people to a magical and enchanting place.”
Writing for the album began whilst on tour in the USA in 2014, she continued writing songs back in London and returned to Los Angeles laden with
lyrical snippets and not-quite-finished melodies. She recorded the whole album in London, primarily at RAK studios in St Johns Wood with the production duo MyRiot (London Grammar), and laterwith Jim Abbiss (Adele / Arctic Monkeys), who also worked on her first tworecords. The majority of the album was mixed by Craig Silvey who has also worked with artists including Arcade Fire and Florence and The Machine.
While Birdy co-wrote a handful of the songs – (among her collaborators are
Cherry Ghost’s Simon Aldred, whose song “People Help The People” she
covered on her first LP, and Justin Parker, who wrote Lana Del Rey’s
“Video Games) – others, such as “Take My Heart”, “Winter” and “Lost It All”
were written and composed entirely by her.
Birdy is in fact a seasoned songwriter, having started writing at the age
of eight. “Wanting to express myself that way seemed like the most natural
thing,” she explains. “I would write the saddest love songs. My parents
would be listening at the bottom of the stairs going ‘What is going on
with her?’ Of course I never thought that this would be my job. That was
something that other people did.”
Birdy’s memories of adolescence are bittersweet. While she has adored
performing, meeting other musicians and travelling the world, there have
been times when she’s craved a more regular existence. “Not being able to
join in with things has been difficult at times,” she explains. “As a
teenager you want to go to parties, hang out with friends and know all the
gossip. It can be weird coming home and finding you’re not up to date.”
This struggle is reflected in the first single on Beautiful Lies, “Keeping
Your Head Up”. It is, says Birdy, “about the fight within yourself, and
how even when you’re at your saddest, you can think about the future and
the good things that are to come. I’m essentially an optimist and I
believe that things will be alright, but I do have that mournful side
which still comes out in my music.”
Rich with emotion and frequently uplifting, Beautiful Lies chronicles a
critical period of self-discovery and newfound independence for Birdy.
This isn’t merely a collection of songs. It’s the sound of a young woman
stretching her wings and taking flight.