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After returning earlier this year to deliver her stunning comeback single ‘Cold Places‘, recently described by The Sunday Times as “Beautifully orchestrated by Sally Herbert, the Jersey singe”s new track combines lush pastoralia, a characteristically serpentine melody and lyrics imbued with yearning and defiance.”, Nerina Pallot now continues the support for her forthcoming new album ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ as she shares the evocative new effort ‘Alice At The Beach‘.
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While ‘Alice At The Beach’ sits one track ahead of the previously shared opener ‘Cold Places’ on the upcoming record, the song was the first of her newest collection to be written. Inspired by the true story of Alice Blaise, a woman who saved a four-year-old boy from drowning in 1965, it perfectly illustrates the intimate human connection this new LP is all about, and allows Pallot add her distinctive allure to a mesmerising narrative.
Speaking about the new song, she said, “This is the first song I wrote for this album, way back in 2019. Inspired by the strange but true stories you see floating around online, the song idea popped into my head one day when I stumbled upon a link to a story about a woman called Alice Blaise who, in 1965, was at the beach in Salem, Massachusetts. Alice rescued a four year old boy called Roger Lausier from the water, got him safely back to his parents and went off back to her life. Lucky she was there, right? Only almost ten years later, Roger is a teenager, and hanging out at the same beach one day when he hears a cry for help and goes to the rescue of a man in trouble in the water. The man’s surname is Blaise – and he is Alice’s husband.
“These stories just fill me with wonder and seem more important than ever, in a time where it feels as if the world is being turned upside down and we are bearing witness to the kind of history we read about at school but never thought we’d see in our lifetime.
“We recorded this track very quickly – in a day. Once we had the main rhythm track nailed it all fell into place very quickly and didn’t change very much at all over the course of making the album. It’s not often that happens. (At least not on my records.)”
Nerina also recently announced a UK tour taking place in October. Tickets on sale now. Full rundown of dates below:
08th – Cambridge – Storeys Field
09th – Norwich – Epic Studios
10th – Brighton – Komedia Studio Bar
12th – Guildford – Boileroom
13th – London – Lafayette
14th – Manchester – Gorilla
16th – Birmingham – Glee Club
17th – Bath – Komedia
19th – Glasgow – St Lukes
20th – Gateshead -Sage 2
21st – York – NCEM
Some art comes to its creator like a crack of thunder: a strike of inspiration out of the blue. Other projects require nurturing; they need to be coaxed out of their hiding places like shy creatures. In the case of Nerina Pallot’s magnificent seventh album ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’, it turned out to be a case of the latter. This record is the product of more than three years of songwriting and studio sessions, resulting in what is undoubtedly one of her finest works to date. It is filled with memories of childhood, strange tales of fate and coincidence, and beautifully realised reflections of self. It’s about making mistakes, learning from them, and celebrating life for as long as we have breath in our bodies.
‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ Tracklist:
Cold Places
Alice At The Beach
Master Builder
There’s a River
Born
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
The Way We Are
Mama
Only The Old Songs
Australia
Don’t Dare (Love Is Hell)
Fun
“I’m really happy to be here,” she says, beaming. “For the first part of my career I was constantly being compared to people who were bigger than me at the time. Now? I don’t care! I don’t fucking care! What do I have to lose by standing up for myself?”
Album track “Born”, is a gorgeously understated song about remembering to value the people in your life. “We all make a mess of living/ We all try to carry on,” she sings. “We try to make the best of it until the day we’re done./ We’ve all got a hurt we’re hiding/ We’ve all got someone we mourn.”
“Born” is followed on I Don’t Know What I’m Doing by the title track, possibly the kind of song Bob Dylan was trying to make when he wrote his ill-fated 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded. She sings in a weathered but hopeful, lilting cadence: “Just leaving my bed is something these days.” The acoustic guitar meanders sweetly with no clear direction, gathering steam as Pallot’s conviction grows: “In the no-fucking-clue club, you’ll never be wrong.” It’s her reminder to stop judging herself by other people’s successes, or the artists she’s been compared to in the past. “I think because I’m always aiming for something beyond me, there’s always that fate that I’m never quite getting there,” she admits. “But I love the challenge, and I don’t think I’ll ever get bored. I think I’ll be 70 and still trying to write my ‘Hounds of Love’.”
Regardless of the favourable comparisons Pallot earns over the course of her career, she remains brilliantly and defiantly unique. Perhaps one of the best examples of this is her outstanding cover “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, featured in the BBC’s universally acclaimed adaptation of Sally Rooney’s Normal People. Pallot’s version opens on a stark piano rendition of that instantly recognisable melody; her voice lands with a kind of fatalistic, angry resignation, the very essence of going up in flames. “When I first started playing that song, it was almost like a fuck-you to my ex-boyfriend,” Pallot says. “It didn’t end well. I don’t think I’ve ever been that sad and angry at the end of any other relationship, and that song was the only one that made me feel OK.” All these years later, she sings it the exact same way: “It’s almost like it’s my own song – I stopped singing it like a cover, because it was articulating everything I felt at the time.”
Contrast this with album closer ‘Fun’, a playfully theatrical tribute to Pallot’s husband, Jersey-born record producer and songwriter Andy Chatterley. Family gets another look-in on ‘Mama’, influenced by her mother’s favourite artist, British icon Elkie Brooks. The track is saturated in the classic soul sound of the Sixties and Seventies, with a chorus redolent of Dee Dee Warwick’s ‘You’re No Good’. Through fraught times, Pallot took refuge in her music and now, listeners can find solace in it, too.
‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ will be available on Digital, CD, vinyl, and cassette upon its release from all good music stores and platforms and available to pre-order from her official web store HERE
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