Q: ‘Cordelia’ is such an ear-pleasing song. Can you tell us the inspiration behind this song?
POSIE: Thank you so much! I’d actually had the name Cordelia in mind to use for a few years. I love using unique female names for titles, this being a nod to the daughter in Shakespeare’s King Lear. My writing partner and I started a melody together that had the opening line “She’s heaven/ she looks like a fallen angel” over it and I thought this might be where Cordelia can fit. Immediately a whole visual soundscape came together of a medieval princess living in Los Angeles. I’d go for walks after writing sessions in Silverlake and the winding roads there have lots of fruit trees, stained glass windows, and eclectic stone houses that I’d picture her living in hidden away from the world. Cordelia is a song I hope connects with young women and girls who feel like they have a type of secret power to guard.
Q: What are your personal favorite lyrics from ‘Cordelia’?
POSIE: I really love the second verse as I think it reveals the most about what I’m trying to convey in the song. “A legend, she slips from your lips just like water/ running out the back down a path to the garden/ where Cordelia learned how to build up her armor.” I like the playful way the first two lines connect – you can imagine Cordelia, as well as a little stream of water running on a stone path towards the garden. Ending with a description of the maturing process through the image of building up shining heavy defenses.
Q: What first got you into music?
POSIE: My dad is a real music lover. Very different genres than myself, he’s a blues and rock guy. He went to Woodstock and basically lived at the Fillmore East in his twenties. A big fan of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, he shook B.B. King’s hand at a show once. I really have him to thank for exposing me to so much great music when I was little and having instruments around for me at all times. He got me a blue Squire Strat when I was around nine which I really enjoyed playing and started taking lessons for a couple of years. When I was in my early teens I began writing my own songs and experimenting with open tunings on the acoustic guitar, that’s when it all started to really click.
Q: How did you get the nickname ‘Posie’?
POSIE: There’s quite a few threads that wove themselves together for me to take on Posie as a stage name. When I was eighteen I lived in Paris for part of a year and played open mics and shows there. I was young and looking to escape myself, I thought it would be fun to perform under a different name. Poesie is the French word for poetry and also the Danish word with a slightly different spelling, my father was born in Denmark so I liked that nod. I used that for awhile and then went back to my name when I was living in New York where I met my writing partner Jeremy Rompala. When we decided to launch a solo artist project together I tossed out the idea of using Poesie again, he liked it spelled Posie so we went with that. A few other things that make the name special to me is how much I loved the book Ballet Shoes when I was little and in particular one of the main character’s Posy, also the Victorian use of the word as a small collection of flowers that can signal a hidden meaning is something which I have adopted as a lyrical theme in my songs
Q: What is your songwriting process like?
POSIE: The way a song comes together is slightly different every time it happens. Typically there’s an initial spark of an idea whether it is melodic or lyrical. From there Jeremy and I will usually sit down at the piano or with an acoustic guitar and try to run with that first feeling for as long as possible without overthinking it and just letting our subconscious run the show. On a very rare occasion the whole song can come out in that first sitting but most of the time the adrenaline high passes and you’re left with a rough shape that needs to continue to be prodded and formed. At that point I’ll write on the concept/theme in my notebook to try and expand on what I’m imagining and then begin to pull lines from that, or we’ll get a track going and start experimenting with instrumentation and arrangements.
Q: What’s coming next for you?
POSIE: I’m really excited to keep releasing a lot of new music this year, so far 2022 has been kicking off with a bang writing a lot of songs that I’m super excited about. Jeremy and I just signed a lease on a new space and are preparing to build a proper studio to work out of which we’re so happy about and I’ll be documenting that process in the months to come across my socials. Also really looking forward to playing live again and scheduling shows. So, stay tuned for all of that!
Interviewed by Kaitlyn Westerman
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