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If soul is a feeling, a fire that burns inside you, then Hannah White is without a doubt a soul singer and her latest single, ‘One Night Stand’, is a fitting soul standard for our times.
The latest taste of her forthcoming album is a wonderfully dramatic slice of dreamy Americana-tinged folk-pop that evokes the melancholy of Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies.
“It’s about growing into an adult in a London suburb council estate where there was no culture, no beautiful architecture or nature, just social housing and hopelessness,” explains Hannah White about the song. “Fall from vision to view is the loss of the romantic dream of a happy, fulfilled life portrayed on TV screens, to the acceptance that there would be no real agency or choice and that life would only ever happen to me like it did to everyone else around me.”
It’s a song about believing in yourself, in your soul and in the purity of your vision and self-expression. Surely, that’s what a soul singer is after all.
“All the nobodies like me we are lining up outside each bar that has promises on offer for the price of a door still left ajar,” White sings, her words tumbling and spilling out around her as the band delicately kicks in behind.
“With my hands inside my pockets for respite from the trials of screwed-up and ruined souls reminding me I’m next in queue,” she sings and it’s like a glitzy British working men’s club twist on Tupac’s ‘The Rose That Grew from Concrete.’ She’s Americana’s answer to Mike Skinner. More Patsy Palmer than Cline, there’s a wittiness to her grittiness and a sparkling wink in her poetry.
The video for ‘One Night Stand’ is premiering exclusively on Holler below.
Released in November, the album comes at the end of an unforgettable year for Hannah White, who began 2023 by winning Best UK Song for 'Car Crash' at the Americana Music Association UK Awards.
The album is produced by Michele Stodart of the Magic Numbers who also appears on ‘One Night Stand’ along with pedal steel player Holly Carter, drummer Emma Holbrook and Keiron Marshall.
“This is a collection of songs about going from growing up on a council estate, and all of the hopelessness, the sadness and the loneliness, to homelessness and then finding a sense of power through words and music, and becoming an artist,” says White. “This is the sweet revolution in my life.”
Sweet Revolution is released on November 3rd via The Last Music Company.
