SONG PREMIERE: Hayley Sabella Shines With Pop-Laden Americana Tune “Turn Around”

Hayley Sabella hails mostly from the New England coast. Inspired by the dramatic landscape and vast seasonal changes that range as much in temperature as they do in color, she reaches for the earth itself in its various forms to give her a sense of belonging. As the daughter of musicians and missionaries, this brought her to experience pivotal years of her childhood in Central America. Naturally, music became a tool through which she could make sense of the world and put down roots, despite a lingering feeling of displacement.

As evidenced in her songs, there is a lustrous display of tension and relief; a relationship between vulnerability and strength, death and rebirth, pain and love. Existing in performance as much as in song, this ongoing conflict allows audiences to gain a glimpse of Sabella’s true persona; she may break your heart, but shortly thereafter will invite you in for a cup of tea, enjoyed most with whiskey. After experimenting with fresh palets and uncharted terrain, Sabella has established a sound she’s been ever yearning for with Forgive the Birds, the second full-length studio album, to be released on April 27. Forgive the Birds is both earthbound and ethereal, revealing gripping melodies and intimate lyrics with an unabashedly earnest delivery.

Today Glide is excited to premiere the tune “Turn Around”, a clear standout on Forgive the Birds. The song begins with a euphoric twang before Sabella’s enchanting vocals chime in to pull the listener into the song. “Turn Around” is a song pleading with the New England weather gods to tilt the world’s axis and move from winter to spring. It begs the ground to thaw and reveal the “life locked up under the frozen mounds.” Sabella became especially sensitive to seasonal changes while working as a farmer. It fostered in her a strong attachment to the landscape, recognizing it as something continuously evolving. She discovered that seasons are highly conducive to the rhythms of her creative process. Embracing the winter as a time for quiet and writing, and the summer as a time for activity and abundance, seasons have taught her that there is space for both pauses and her hardest try. Ultimately, the song is an infectious piece of pop-laden Americana. 

Reflecting on the song’s meaning, Sabella has this to say:

“Turn Around” studies those cold, wet, windy weeks when you start to doubt mild weather will ever come back to Massachusetts. While winter allows you to settle in and introspect, by March, you’ve gathered all of this latent creative energy, and when winter lingers too long (as it always does on the northeastern coast) spring comes with this restless, overeager quality to it. This song attempts to harness that excited frustration.

LISTEN:

Hayley Sabella releases Forgive The Birds on April 27. For more music and info visit hayleysabellamusic.com.

Photo credit: Sasha Pedro