Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Gabriel Teodros, host of EARLY on KEXP, is "BITTERSWEET" by Ivy Sole, from the 2020 album SOUTHPAW on Les Fleurs Records.
Ivy Sole wasn't even sure she wanted to release a new album this year, but thankfully, she did, with her brand new release SOUTHPAW.
"Me and my manager have been hesitant to release any music to distract or make light of what is happening, and this is prior to George Floyd and how that has changed the COVID era," she admitted to DJBooth.net. "To be honest, I was gonna drop an album this year and decided to hold off on that to sit with what is happening right now. I don’t want to 'lend' my voice to the movement. By virtue of being an abolitionist and endeavoring to be a radical thinker, anything that I would release was going to add to that conversation. With 'Bittersweet,' I wanted to release something that spoke directly to it rather than shying away from it."
She adds, "I started writing it just on some, 'Damn, I miss the feeling of summer.' This summer feels bittersweet to me. I can’t touch and be touched the way I’m usually experiencing summer. Summer is such a sensory period — it’s hot, you sweat, you’re in the park, on rooftops. I was on some nostalgic shit with the first verse, and then the George Floyd uprising happened, and I was like… At this point, everything is changing, so I don’t want the change to be piecemeal at all. I don’t want the minimum. That’s what the powers that be tend to expect us to accept. I’m in a headspace where I finally have a taste of what it could be like to be free, so I just refuse to settle in any way, shape, or form. All of us deserve that. More and more people are starting to realize they don’t have to accept what they’ve been given."
Proceeds from the track are being donated to Black womxn experiencing housing instability or facing eviction in the NY/NJ/PA area.
