Freya Josephine Hollick Track by Track With “The Real World”

The Real World, the brand new long-player from Australian cosmic country outlier Freya
Josephine Hollick has been a hard time coming. During the wait, The Real World that Freya had
written about faced dire challenges. The very real effects of the dying planet began to impact
heavily upon humanity and the planet was plunged into pandemic chaos. The resulting satellite
of dense karma cast an undeniable tidal pull over her third full-length album, a record that had
unfolded in the desert with a future so clear, was now going to have to be fought for.

Freya takes Hi Fi Way through the album track by track…

1 Nobody’s No Better Than No One

This song sprung from the unconscious at some point about 6 years ago. I’d been hooked on trying to learn old blues songs, including a tune called ‘It Hurts Me Too’. It fell out in response to my dealings with a well known American musician, and as one I was sort of never really proud of, but through the recording process and it’s introduction to the desert air of Joshua Tree, it became its own special super power, and often audiences most loved song. Go figure.

2 Impossible to Love

Ain’t that the truth. This one was written both about the impossibility of me being lovable and the impossibility of loving a difficult person. It’s a little tongue in cheek about the dosey doe we do with people we want to love who we know aren’t right for us, ignoring red flags, and forging ahead blind and punch drunk on lust.

3 Me & Mine

Political ineptitude is always something to behold for those in the arts. Societal unrest, discontent, and hardship can often bear fruit that explains the human condition. The prospect of Yin and Yang, good and bad, light and shade, that there is not one without the other. Me & Mine is all about this, about the gathering of artists to rise up against the powers that be. Big vibes.

4 Vivian, June, Dolly & Jolene

Vivian was Johnny Cash’s first wife, June his second, and Dolly Parton wrote her heart-wrenching classic Jolene about a beautiful red-haired bank teller she worried would steal her man. This song deals in classic country themes, love, lust, betrayal, deceit and most importantly, infidelity. These are themes all of us deal with at some point or another. And for me, outside of my music, themes I’ve unfortunately dealt with endlessly in my personal life.

This was me trying to write a song from the perspective of the women and other musicians who knowingly wronged me in my relationship with my daughter’s father. A deep cut, but also just something fun to dance to! When in doubt, write a song about it, no?

5 The Real World

The Real World is the centrepiece of this album I’m so proud of. As we watch daily, the disastrous effects of human existence on the natural world, we are somehow frozen, muted, unable to truly act on what we see playing out in front of us. We feel simultaneously responsible for the state of things, and incapable of doing anything about it. The Real World is really a love song to the planet, sorrowful, knowing, and devastated that we’ve let it get to an irreversible crux, and now we have to hold her hand while we watch the descent into an uninhabitable eco-system. So just a cheery little number.

6 Holdin’ On The Ones You Love

All too often, the folly of humankind is taking for granted that which is immediately in front of us. Always rushing ahead or looking back and never really deeply present enough to be grateful for the moment we are experiencing then and there. Whether it’s your family, friends, the person who makes your coffee in the morning or your beautiful dog, we miss the beauty of those who are right there, we don’t tell them, we let life, moods and day to day nonsense and drama get in the way of really giving in to the wonder of living. This song is just a little reminder that now is the moment to tell someone you care about them. Show them you care about them.

7 Wilderness Tune

My saving grace is walks in nature. I love wandering by a body of water, feeling the wind and sun on my skin, seeing all of life emblazoned like a baby seeing a colourful flower for the first time. ‘Wilderness Tune’ I wrote as I wandered the track near my home one morning a long time ago now, I still feel the same way about that walk today as I did then.

8 Spend Your Christmas With Rita

Loosely futuristic autobiography, loosely fiction, Spend Your Christmas With Rita is about the faded glory of a rising star ‘past her prime’ as the industry might say. This is a fairly out and out criticism of the patriarchal system which the music industry operates under. There is very little respect in this country for femme artists over a certain age. Artists who have contributed an unbelievable amount to the rich tapestry of music, who have been discarded and disrespected, and not allowed their rightful place as torch bearers. This is me, looking ahead at 20 years time, hoping I have a career forged on the premise of longevity rather than burn bright and die out, it’s me hoping things have changed by then.

9 What A Tender Thing

This song has often made me cry when I perform it live. It’s a deep cut. Written for a love I once had, about missing all the small things, the smell of the cup of tea they made in the morning, the sound of their breath as they drift into sleep, the feeling of their hand searching for my heartbeat on my chest. Tender moments you wish to return to, never lost, but preserved by your memory, and perhaps more real when you remember them than they were when they were here. Gosh I even find it hard to write about. I wrote What A Tender Thing when I was still with that person, and we are no longer together. Playing that song is a therapy of its own kind.

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