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Following the release of "Tell Me I’m Pretty", Brynn Elliott is back with a new single, "Letter To A Girl"! The song is an emotional message to the American singer-songwriter’s younger self and explores self-image and just trying to make sense of the world. Check out our interview with her here and make sure to check out her new EP, "Can I Be Real?", featuring "Tell Me I'm Pretty" and "Letter To A Girl" out now!
Follow Brynn!
Instagram: https://instagram.com/brynnelliott
Twitter: https://twitter.com/brynnelliott
Listen to "Can I Be Real?"
Interview by Caroline Wang, Photo by Lauren Dunn
Congrats on your new single "Letter To A Girl"! It’s a beautiful and inspiring track dedicated to your younger self and it’s definitely going to have a huge impact on other young women from all over the world as well. What inspired you to start writing it?
Thank you so much! Letter To A Girl was inspired after opening for Why Don’t We. They have such an amazing fan base primarily made up of teenage girls. After performing for thousands of them every night I had this thought to write a song to myself at that stage of life, as a teenager where I would say all the things I wish I had known then about life, love and what it means to live a beautiful life. And so after I got off the road I sat down and wrote the song!
I love the lyric “Beautiful’s created in your mind.” What other advice would you give to girls who might be struggling with not feeling beautiful enough?
Thank you! To the girl who is struggling with not feeling beautiful enough I would say that just the very fact that you are human makes you beautiful. Culture likes to distill beauty to something in our physical appearance and I think that’s a lie. Being beautiful is knowing how powerful and wonderful you are because you are human. So I would encourage her to have an expansive view of beauty outside physical appearance.
I know you wrote the song a few years ago and weren’t initially going to release it, what motivated you to put it out now? What was it like to put it out after so long?
Yes, Letter was one of those songs I wrote as a stand alone song outside of a particular project. Then I wrote a whole EP that I am releasing this year and honestly thought maybe I had beat the song with that other music. But then over the pandemic I kept seeing my fans mentioning the song after I had only played it maybe three times on the road. That’s when I realized that this song meant something to them and they deserve to have it out into the world. Letter To A Girl is really for them :)
Has the song changed since you first played it on the road?
Yes, Letter has definitely changed since I first played it on the road. When I was first playing it it was just me singing and playing guitar. Now the song has this whole realized production with drums, piano, synths and strings - the works!!
Do you miss being on tour and playing live? What do you miss most?
Yes, I absolutely miss being on the road. I feel most connected to my art when I am playing it live for people so I would say that I mostly miss that connection and the inherently communal aspect that I think is so vital to music.
How has living in LA been as opposed to growing up in Atlanta and living in Nashville? Have the three cities influenced your music in any way?
I am loving living in LA! I feel like it's sort of similar to both Atlanta and Nashville. LA is a very sprawling city like Atlanta so that makes me feel at home. LA reminds me of Nashville in that it's choc full of creative people which I love. I think being able to call these three cites home has influenced me in that I know my music doesn't have to be so heavy-handed in terms of genre. I can write more soulful songs that remind me of growing up in Georgia or I can write something that leans more Americana/Country like I heard in Nashville. Those two things aren’t at odds for me because each side has come from my own real lived experience. These two cities have helped me create my own brand of pop music here in LA.
Do you have any major musical influences behind "Letter To A Girl" and the rest of your EP, "Can I Be Real?" in general?
When I wrote the EP I was listening to a lot of Nirvana, Coldplay, Rihanna and Sia and I think you can hear a lot of those sensibilities in the production of the EP. There’s a song called Masterpiece on the EP that I wrote as if Coldplay and Sia did a collab which I deeply feel should actually happen in real life!
"Tell Me I’m Pretty" and "Letter To A Girl" explore self-image and identity. Can we expect similar sounds and themes for your upcoming EP, "Can I Be Real"?
Yes indeed! You can definitely expect similar sounds and themes though I will say that these first two songs I’ve released from the project discuss the main themes of the EP from a particular angle, namely my identity as a woman. The rest of the EP expands upon the themes of authenticity and beauty as broader, human concepts.
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