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“Good girls have edges that the boys can’t break,” Van Plating remembers her mother saying to her. It’s a line that comes back to her in the bittersweet singalong chorus to ‘Orange Blossom Child.’
“You don’t get your significance from your role or your relationship to other people,” she explains. “It’s all about who you are, your intrinsic ‘you-ness’. That’s what makes you special and it’s worth celebrating.”
Taken from her keenly anticipated new album of the same name, ‘Orange Blossom Child’ is a dreamy slice of power pop reminiscent of the playful country-leanings of Jenny Lewis or Neko Case. It’s the kind of song that could have soundtracked The O.C.'s Marissa and Ryan driving around Newport Beach in his beige Toyota Land Cruiser just as the sun slips down below the horizon.
“Jenny Lee passed away last year. Cancer, I think,” Van Plating says about the inspiration behind the song. “Everyone tells us to dream big, and she sure did.”
“Jenny’s dreams stayed big even when life didn’t cooperate. She wasn’t good in the obvious ways, but she was a brilliant cartoonist. After disappearing for years, she returned home and spent her last working years tending bar at the local restaurant.”
“As Jenny Lee endured her last stages of sickness about 60 miles up the road from me last year, I penned this song, ‘Orange Blossom Child,’ a throwback to teenaged nights we spent wandering the Florida countryside, driving south on OBT from Mount Dora in the 90s - all we needed was a little gas in the tank, music cranked up, and the giddy adolescent premonitions of our future lives stretched out before us on those two-lane roads. I think she’s still out there. I can still feel her sparks in the ether along those sunny country roads; along with this music– she’s free.”
Van Plating talks more about the inspirations for writing and recording the song below.
Having already release ‘The Heron’ featuring Elizabeth Cook from the album and ‘The Hard Way’ featuring members of Reckless Kelly, ‘Orange Blossom Child’ is the final single coming out before the album is released on September 15th.
The multi-instrumental musician and producer Van Plating was determined to unveil the unique essence of Florida's music on the album. Throughout the record’s creation and mixing process, Plating's influences naturally came to light, resulting in a sound that authentically represented her upbringing, a genre she aptly calls "Orange Blossom Country." The result is a deeply personal exploration of her family's journey and the concept of home in rural Florida during the latter half of the 20th century.
Orange Blossom Child is released on Singular Recordings on September 15th.
