Track By Track: All the girlie bits and pieces of Ali Barter's debut album, A Suitable Girl

Today is the day Ali Barter's debut album, A Suitable Girl, is released, and it's been so great having her on board as our Guest Editor for the week - providing some insight into herself, the album, and the zine she created for it. Today is her last piece of content for our site - a track by track digging into each track from the album. We'll also be sharing a video interview with her on our Facebook today, but until then, learn yourself about her sparkling debut album, below:

Cigarette

This song is about being overlooked. It’s about feeling frustrated for being treated like a piece of meat. I had been doing some writing with a producer in LA called Harlan Silverman. We wrote another song of mine, Far Away, together and I knew I wanted to work with him again. He sent me a demo of this song and I just loved it. I wrote some new lyrics and played around with the chords and it sounded great. I love collaborating with other writers. In a studio, in a living room, via email. It’s so fun.

One Foot In

This song is about someone who I thought was being a flake. I wrote it with Bertie Blackman and Thom Macken on the central coast of NSW. We made a demo in Thom’s living room. Bertie played the drums. I wrote the words. Thom was the producer. It was fun. This song is one of my favourites to play live.

Girlie Bits

I wrote Girlie Bits song in a beach hut in Goa. It was really hot. So hot that we had to stay inside most of the day. I went a bit stir crazy so thank God I had a guitar. I felt trapped on that holiday and I think that helped in the feeling of the song. I wrote the song in 10 minutes and made a demo of it on my iPhone. I still can't believe it was in the Hottest 100.

Tokyo

This song is about a holiday I took with an old boyfriend. When I look back at this trip I see it’s kinda the moment it all started to fall apart. Tokyo is a really beautiful place but I found it so desperately lonely while I was there. I couldn’t find the words to tell this person how I felt and there was this sadness because I think we both knew the relationship wasn’t going to work.

The Captain

The Captain is about someone that I used to be really close to who I felt was losing his way. This person I had loved was becoming someone I didn’t understand and it hurt like hell. This song almost didn’t make it on to the album. We had demoed it up and I felt like it didn’t quite fit, but during The Jezabels tour last year we started paying it and it came together perfectly.

Light Them On Fire

I did some writing in LA with a wonderful songwriter called Sydney Wayser. We sat in her living room with her cats and talked about boys and wrote this song. We both felt like we had been screwed around by a boy in our life and this song just poured out of us. It was like therapy.

Please Stay

This song is an apology. I was being a bitch to my boy while he was on tour with his band. I was ignoring his texts and being passive aggressive and immature. It happens. Sometime you just need to remember to say sorry and try not to be an arsehole. I think that's a good life motto.

Live With You

This song is about something that happened in my life where a person came into my world and disrupted my plans. I was so angry. It used to stop me sleeping at night and it really tore me up inside. I felt powerless. This one is fun to play live because we really get to thrash it out.

Delilah

This song is about my other self. The part of me that doesn’t give a fuck. She isn’t jealous or scared or threatened. I was channeling Bette Davis Eyes and Fleetwood Mac's Rhiannon.

Far Away

I wrote this song in LA. I had been there for two weeks driving the freeway from one end of LA to the other writing songs with different people everyday. It was my last session and I was completely brain dead. I was at producer Harlan Silverman’s studio for two hours and we wrote the first verse and chorus. Then I had to leave because I was totally spent. I really had smoked too many cigarettes and drunk too much coffee. It's a very literal song.

Walk/Talk

I demoed this song up with a musician called Jono Boulet. We were at a songwriting camp and had a studio to muck around in so I played him this song and we recorded it. I had also worked on this song in a session with Adalita. She came to my studio, I played her some stuff and we had a jam. She is a hero of mine from when I was in high school. I was a big Magic Dirt fan. I was pretty excited to write with her. I had to have a little lie down after she left.

A Suitable Girl is out now, and Ali Barter is touring it nationally soon - check all the dates HERE.