“I wanted a silver lining with an effervescent quality that was a contradiction to the heavy period we were in,” she says. Using Spring as a visual metaphor for brighter times, Karen Elson welcomes this new chapter in our lives with her album Green. After the British supermodel turned music back in 2010 – and after founding the cabaret group the Citizens Bands back in 2004, it seems she has now found peace in Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, and her own guitars. She built her career by being a runway model for YSL, Alexander McQueen, Marc Jacobs, and Versace and had been called one of the most influential models by publications like Vogue or Marie Claire and has been the face of Jo Malone London. Now, she's more focused on her music career.
Elson says she rediscovered music as the world shut down. She went back to being a teenager daydreaming about songs and craved hope, a better future. With the intro of the album in My Sparrow she claims “Never go away, my butterfly, spring is here to stay, and so am I,” a positive chant that grabs a stronger force on the autobiographical Broken Shadow, where she wonders where should she go and whether she’s ready to allow herself to wander free on a world full of uncertainty: “When I was young, I let the darkness drag me down, but I’m not afraid these days.”
Back to the metaphorical world of hers, we find the song that gives name to the album, Green, as she brings synesthesia by naming different colours and their meaning, “yellow is the colour of the Sun in the window pain, silver is the colour I reach for the sky that shines”. Nevertheless, it seems fitting that, with the minimalistic rawness of this project, Karen teased it with the lead single Lightning Strikes, which was directed by Moschino’s Creative director Jeremy Scott.
Back to the metaphorical world of hers, we find the song that gives name to the album, Green, as she brings synesthesia by naming different colours and their meaning, “yellow is the colour of the Sun in the window pain, silver is the colour I reach for the sky that shines”. Nevertheless, it seems fitting that, with the minimalistic rawness of this project, Karen teased it with the lead single Lightning Strikes, which was directed by Moschino’s Creative director Jeremy Scott.
