California

EMA

A song that amps me up for a big writing week. This beautiful, hard-hitting track is stream of consciousness, yet sung conversationally by Erika M. Anderson, aka EMA. A bed of drones and feedback and violins and buried drums. It was once my official leaving Hollywood for Oregon song back in 2010-11. Fuck California / you made me boring / I bled all my blood out was how I felt being stuck in that ego-driven echo chamber. It was so wonderful to leave and make films on my own terms in the northwest. The song is raw emotion and all those random people dragging her down — Stephen, Andrew, Joseph, Mary, Andrew, Grandpa — are now in her rearview.