Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Ane Brun, Balloon Ranger Recordings 2020.
Ane Brun is a Norwegian singer/songwriter who is based in Stockholm Sweden.
I’ve always enjoyed her breathy vocal delivery and was quite taken with her 2017 release, Leave Me Breathless, an album of covers of well-known love songs.
Honey is her new single from a yet to be released, and so far untitled, album and it has an interesting back story.
Brun confides that she had a pen pal for many years.
They started writing to each other when they were 13 years old and continued for the next decade.
She comments that those letters were long and intense and personal but as age and email contact crept up on them the letters gradually faded.
Now they are in their thirties and the friends decide to swap letters and consequently a shoebox full arrived in the mail.
In the box was a cassette tape that Ane had forgotten about and so she pulled out her old Walkman and there was the clear, light, voice of the 18 year old Ane Brun speaking to her.
“As the tape rolled my jaw dropped. Her energy struck me and I was filled with love for this young, and in many ways innocent, version of myself… this girl talking non-stop in a boundless flow of words and emotions.”
What happened was that Ane realised that she had reconnected with her younger self and it had in some way made her feel more whole and complete.
Honey is the song that came out of that experience.
It’s a love song to her younger self.
The track opens with the voice of the younger Ane counting in the song and in the longer version, which is superior to the shortened radio edit, that young voice can be heard at various times chiming through the ages and providing the perfect ending to the song.
Ane sings to her younger self telling her that she has faith in her and that she will succeed in life.
That she will make mistakes but the older Ane will be keeping an eye out for her.
It’s a lovely thought and I wonder what we’d all say to our younger selves if we had the opportunity.
This is another track that I’ll be adding to my ‘surviving the pandemic’ mixed tape.
