Ellie Barbor, who performs as “Ollela,” talks about reminiscence, loss, and on-going love together with her Tiny Desk Contest entry, “Tea Kettle Tea.”
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
ELLIE BARBOR: My identify is Ellie Barbor. I’m an indie-folk cellist and vocalist based mostly in Seattle that performs beneath the moniker Ollella.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Ollella has been a finalist twice for NPR’s Tiny Desk contest – this yr for her music “Tea Kettle Tea.”
BARBOR: The music “Tea Kettle Tea” is about my aunt. She handed of most cancers after I was 11. She was a second mom determine to me, principally. She was my first music trainer.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) I keep in mind after we would draw orca whales throughout your partitions. We’d race up and down the halls.
BARBOR: My aunt was a really artistic individual. She had this wall in her home that she designated for my sister and I to color on. My recollections of her are sometimes in her home, doing artwork tasks, singing opera at full quantity. The identify “Tea Kettle Tea” comes from a ritual that we had, type of, in these moments of quiet.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) On cloudy days, you acquire us tea, milk and honey with chamomile.
BARBOR: She would serve us in these actually lovely china. At the moment, it was the fanciest factor I had ever touched (laughter). She known as it tea kettle tea, ‘trigger it was in a particular tea kettle with particular tea cups.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) Due to you, I write my songs. You knew I had it in me all alongside.
BARBOR: Writing the music, it was a strategy of going again via my head and grieving, primarily, her loss. The lyrics are precisely what I keep in mind. They’re vignettes of life being very artistic and joyful in her home, after which there are these moments that I keep in mind of the two-year interval of her dying.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) Sooner or later these recollections moved on to the hospital. At first just a few, then it was all, sterilized with alcohol. We went for walks slowly within the leaves.
BARBOR: She was extremely sensible. She was a surgeon. She was a hand surgeon, and she or he restored musicians’ capacity to play by doing surgical procedure on their palms. And I keep in mind noticing because the most cancers progressed, she began to type of go on these fascinating psychological diatribes, or her thoughts would wander in ways in which I wasn’t used to, and I believe that was actually stark as a younger lady.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
BARBOR: I believe that the instrumental parts of the music are virtually as impactful because the lyrics. There’s a cello. The cello’s my major instrument. I used to be raised enjoying it. I began after I was 9. After which we have now an upright bass, a violin and fairly minimal percussion.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
BARBOR: At the very least after I play it, the temper is catharsis and nostalgia.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) At the moment, I believed this simply was the way in which it’s with the folks you like. They’d come round, you’d do enjoyable stuff, then they’d fly off on the wings of a dove.
BARBOR: I hope that this music helps folks grieve in their very own methods.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) I nonetheless make tea kettle tea.
BARBOR: I believe that is what’s cool about this, is that I’ve realized how relatable this expertise is. It is made me notice that persons are grieving on a regular basis.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
OLLELLA: (Singing) It was your love that set me free.
BARBOR: So typically, I’ve performed the music and any individual will come as much as me afterwards with tears of their eyes, and it feels type of like a present, to have the ability to share such an intimate second with a stranger due to a bit of music.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
SIMON: Tiny Desk Contest standout Ellie Barbor, who performs as Ollella. And you’ll see the video of her music “Tea Kettle Tea” on our web site, tinydeskcontest.npr.org, and, after all, hear it on her album, “Again Again Again.”
(SOUNDBITE OF OLLELLA SONG, “TEA KETTLE TEA”)
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