Australian singer/songwriter Stella Donnelly is back with word of her sophomore album, “Flood“, coming August 26th on Secretly Canadian, and with a world tour slated for this Autumn. Lead single “Lungs” is out now, complete with a music video. On “Lungs,” Flood’s opener, Donnelly writes from the perspective of a child whose family is being evicted, vocalizing acrobatically as she insists in its choruses, “Don’t watch us when we leave / Won’t let you see us.” Up-tempo percussion and a roomy arrangement of bass, distant guitar distortion and organ lend the song some lightness, but Donnelly’s lyrics, masked by the sing-song delivery she assumes so as to better inhabit her character, are quietly harrowing: “Stretching out the leather on your wallet / That my lungs are filling up / Long live the asbestos on the rental / Yeah it looks alright to me,” she sings, alluding to the ultimate cost of poverty. “I’ll be a child, rest of my life,” she swears as the song winds down, imploring, “History again, teach me like a friend, what you know and why.”
This is my song “Lungs“, an attempt to tell a story of classism and city limits suburbia through the honesty of a child.
It’s the first single from my new album, “Flood”, which will be released on Friday August 26th. “Flood” is another compilation of diary entries and fictional stories that allow me to expand on moments between humans.
“Lungs” by Stella Donnelly from the forthcoming album ‘Flood’, out August 26th on Secretly Canadian.
The Fat Angel Sings 