Sometimes I find it strange when musical lyrics don’t seem to match up with the music video they create. It always makes me wonder what brings it about. Did the artist or band decide that they wanted something completely unrelated, or did the video director or writer just ask for a favor from the artist to do a pet project.
I really like this song, as it’s quite melodic and soulful in its own way. Although the mood of the video seems to fit, the end of it doesn’t seem to match. Maybe I just need to watch it more and listen more closely to the lyrics, though.
Emmy the Great is the stage name of Emma-Lee Moss. Oddly, she doesn’t and has never liked Emmy as a moniker, which is what people started to call her in college. So she added ‘The Great’ to it to make it sound more interesting.
Moss was born in Hong Kong to a British father and Chinese mother, but they moved to England when she was twelve before the British lost their lease on the city. She began using the stage name in 2006 and released her first solo album in 2009. Much to the surprise of everyone, the album was named by The New York Times as the seventh best album of that year.
While Emmy the Great still hasn’t exactly made it to the big times, she does get a fair amount of attention by having written the intro and outro music for a popular podcast called Mystery Show, which is produced by Gimlet Media, a favorite of mine (aside: if you haven’t hear that show yet, you need to, because Starlee Kine is absolutely hilarious and wonderful in it!).
This song, ‘Swimming Pool,’ was released just over a year ago.
Emmy the Great is a London-based singer-songwriter that makes some great music. (Photo credit: Jan Willem Dikkers)