On ‘Impossible to Love’, Freya Josephine Hollick captures that grand conundrum of the heart at its most raw and timeless, a sharp electric spark of a song that sees the songwriter ruminate on inevitable – yet seemingly doomed – romance.
At once galvanised and sauntering, sentimental and self-aware, the song is anchored by Hollick’s full-throated vocals above a warm palette of electric guitar and pedal steel that eventually gives way to a swirling guitar break courtesy of Stuart Mathis.
Joined by Lucinda Williams’ backing band Buick 6 along with guitarist Greg Leisz, ‘Impossible to Love’ is one of several tracks Hollick recorded at the famed Rancho de la Luna studio in Joshua Tree for her forthcoming album The Real World.
Hollick says she wrote the song as “a lament to my consistent confusion when it comes to affairs of the heart and life in general.”
“I’d been listening to a lot of Queen, and I wrote it during a time when I was also struggling a bit with feeling like maybe I would never be the kind of musician that people really ‘got’,” she adds.
“Not one of the cool kids, but one of those kind of periphery dwellers that people only ever started to listen to once I’d faded into obscurity, or wound up dead under unusual circumstances. Maybe it’ll still go that way, but either way consider it another anthem for underdogs and loners.”
Listen to ‘Impossible to Love’ below. The Real World is set for release later this year.
