Apra Silver Scroll Awards Photo:
Five homegrown tunes are in the running for Aotearoa's most prestigious songwriting award - the APRA Silver Scroll.
Ahead of next Tuesday's awards ceremony in Pōneke Wellington, the five finalists tell Music 101 the stories behind their nominated songs.
- Look for the Silver Scrolls streaming here on RNZ's website and our Facebook page Tuesday night!
Silver Scrolls: 5 songs about connection, fun and whakapapa
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2024 APRA Silver Scroll Award Kaitito Top Five:
'I Like to Be Alone' written by Gussie Larkin, Lily Paris West, and Abraham Hollingsworth, performed by Mermaidens
Gussie Larkin: "When you're in a long-term relationship the cliche is that I don't have enough material. There's not enough drama going on in my life. I don't have this breakup album or a new love. I'm really glad that I found this angle for myself because it feels really true to me.
Lily Paris West: "Gussie and I have been spending lots of alone time together… We've been together for a while now, working on our material and we had this very magical time away in a very small village in the south of Spain, where we've been kind of working on a new record. That is feeling very exciting for us.
Gussie Larkin: The solitude is kind of the anthem of 'I like to be alone'. It couldn't be more true with how kind of creative we've been in this very solitary distraction-less village. The song couldn't be more true to our creative process, as well."
Related: Mermaidens live in session
'I Am' written by Stan Walker*, Vince Harder, Donny Te Kanapu Anasta, and Michael Fatkin^, performed by Stan Walker (*Sony Music Publishing, ^Universal Music Publishing)
American film director Ava DuVernay invited Walker to write a song for the soundtrack to her 2023 film Origin after seeing his viral cover of Kanye West's song 'Ultralight Beam'.
Stan Walker: "She sent me the film and it blew my mind away… I went in with a posture of 'I'm a Māori man, I'm already going to feel that I've had these experiences, my parents or grandparents, so on and so forth'. So I'm going in like 'Yep, I'm about to hate some colonisers.'
"By the end of the film I came out and my mind and my heart had changed, I felt connected to humanity as a whole. It wasn't like white, black, brown. It's actually these caste systems that have put us in these places … I just walked away feeling and asking myself questions of 'What do I need to do to be a better human being?'
"I was like 'Man, humanity, we've all gone through it' and it's actually my job to help people on their journey, to bring hope, healing, love and joy."
Related: Stan Walker on recording 'I Am' for the 2023 film Origin
'Jenny Greenteeth' written by Chelsea Prastiti, Michael Howell, Tom Dennison, and Adam Tobeck, performed by SKILAA
Chelsea Prastiti: "Jenny Greenteeth is a folk figure from British and Welsh folklore. She's kind of a hag or a ghoul that haunts rivers and larger bodies of water like lakes. She's sort of told as a story to children in order to scare them away from being too near riverbanks. She'll come up and grab you by your ankles and sort of drag you underwater. She's a metaphor in my song for other things.
"[The Silver Scroll nomination] is not even real to me. I'm just like, what is happening? I'm absolutely blown away and incredibly moved and honoured. We were just blown away that we were even on the shortlist. I didn't see it coming. I really didn't. And then the top five is just… yeah, just like another sort of dream within a dream for me. It's been really lovely."
Related: NZ Live: SKILAA
'Kātuarehe' written by Anna Coddington, Noema Te Hau III, Ruth Smith, and Kawiti Waetford, performed by Anna Coddington
Anna Coddington: 'Kātuarehe' started to develop when Coddington was in an Uber on the way to Roundhead Studios to participate in Reo Māori SongHubs - a project where musicians take turns being the lead artist of a song.
"It was about halfway through the week and it was my turn to be the lead. I was in the Uber thinking 'What do I want to do? I just want to do something fun. That's all I really care about doing. I want a funky bass line and something upbeat, I want cool drums, something sassy'.
"I was listening to Grace Jones and a couple of other more modern songs as well. We got into the studio and just kind of laid all that on the table and went from there. We put some rough drums down. I played the drums and did something really simple that we could easily build around. And then I came up with that bass line."
Related: Anna Coddington on her new single 'Kātuarehe'
'The Letter' written by Georgia Lines, Whakaio Taahi*, and Ricky Manning, performed by Georgia Lines (*Kobalt Music Publishing)
Georgia Lines: "When we wrote ['The Letter'], it definitely felt like one of those songs that had connected so deeply to me and my own story. That has always been the goal the last few years with anything that I've written - to write from that place of vulnerability and be willing to lean into every emotion possible. Which is terrifying but at the end of that session I was like 'Oh my goodness, we've just tapped into something really special'. And regardless of if other people connect to the song, it felt like a really special song for me.
"The whole song is a lot of internal dialogue and questions, and I guess wondering that feels very, personal and vulnerable and deep. It's been a really cool thing for me hearing how people have interpreted the song and the meaning and found their own stories kind of woven through these lyrics. It's a pretty special thing to be the vehicle of something that's been about my own life and my own journey and then hearing how people have found their own stories [in it]."
Related: Georgia Lines: 'I am in the process of coming back to life'