The Providence singer-songwriter’s latest single, “Ghost Story,” is a cautionary tale about heartbreak and the perils of modern dating.
This story was originally published by Rhode Island PBS/The Public’s Radio, a publication partner of Ocean State Stories.
With a background in literature and classical music, Providence musician Olivia Dolphin writes piano-driven pop songs about relationships and self-reflection. She stopped by the studio for an interview with Artscape producer James Baumgartner, and to play a couple of songs from her upcoming album, “Better.”
You can listen to Olivia Dolphin’s music and find upcoming show dates at oliviadolphinmusic.com.
Transcript:
Olivia Dolphin: So I actually call it witch pop. Which is something we’re trying on, but basically, honoring the things that make me feel a little witchy, like, loving friendship and magic, and the environment, and community and infusing all of that into my lyrics. And then with the musical content, like sometimes we go a little dark with the chords and the chord progressions and the sounds we’re making as a band. So yeah, we’re trying on the term ‘Witch Pop’ today.
James Baumgartner: Listening to your music, I hear elements of a little Pat Benatar, maybe a little Alanis Morissette, maybe a little Tori Amos, correct me if I’m wrong, who would you add in that? Who is, who, maybe even, A little element of musical theater?
Dolphin: That is the list that I hear often, which is an honor, always. I would add the people that I listen to most often, which is Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson, Vanessa Carlton, like, the really piano driven singer songwriters, Regina Spector, That’s like who I listened to, but as a 90s girl, I think there’s a lot of that 90s rock influence that I didn’t know I had it’s just coming out naturally.
Baumgartner: What about some of those artists really inspires you?
Dolphin: I love the storytelling aspect. When you listen to Brandi Carlile, or you listen to Ingrid Michaelson, or you listen to Tori Amos, they use really poetic, lyrical, you know, high energy content in their songs. They’re really touching on a lot of different topics, but at the core of it all is like that strong storytelling, which I really loved. So marrying a lot of my writing background with my music background, I think it’s only natural that I kind of, blend, you know, some of those aspects together like Brandi Carlile, like Tori Amos and so on and so forth.
Baumgartner: Can you tell me a little bit more about how your literary background influences your songwriting?
Dolphin: Yeah, I would love to. I have always been a reader. That has been something that I’ve done my whole life. I grew up reading the Harry Potter books. I was the Harry Potter girl at school. And while my relationship to Harry Potter has changed, because of recent comments by the author, I still really value the morals that I took away from Harry Potter, like community, like celebrating friendships, like fighting for what you believe in.
And, my first creative project out in the world was a literary magazine called Wizards in Space and that was such a fun project. We were a printed literary magazine. We paid all of our writers. We paid all of the staff and that was in part due to our kickstart and our crowdfund efforts. But that really allowed us to do literary community storytelling in a way that felt right to us, which is paying artists for their work and celebrating the voices in the literary community that don’t always get the spotlight on them. And we would go to conventions and we would teach writing workshops and that was an incredible experience to kind of try on what it feels like to be in the literary community. And I see so much of that in the way I do music now. When I plan shows, when I think about the topics of my songs, there is always a little bit of that community centered magic in what I’m trying to do.
And booking shows has become part of the music thing that I’m enjoying a lot of because it means I get to go out into the world, find people that are doing cool things, have impactful things to say and bring them all under one show, one experience. And that’s been really rewarding.
Baumgartner: Your latest single is called Ghost Story. Yeah. Tell us a little bit about that.
Dolphin: Ghost Story is what I call a spooky banger. It’s loud. It’s in your face. It’s a little Halloween all year round. And it is about being ghosted. I got ghosted by the same person twice. My bad, should have read the signs. … Ghost Story is about kind of wishing that you had seen the signs in a relationship to not get ghosted. The very first song I wrote after this experience was like a very sad song and it was called Faded and it had some of the same lyrical elements, which is like wanting any excuse in the world to explain why this happened to you, why you went through this heartbreak. And so it talks about, you know, looking at the tarot cards, or looking at your horoscope, and wanting, wanting any explanation, because when you get ghosted, there’s no closure, none. I then kind of sat down a couple months later and wrote Ghost Story, which is a more high energy, upbeat song kind of reclaiming this experience and like the lyric you’re just another ghost story is kind of that dismissive thing of like, all right I’m not gonna get closure free like I’m not gonna get closure from you, but I don’t need it, because you’re just a ghost story. It doesn’t matter.
Baumgartner: You put together shows at Askew. And I hear you like putting together a mixed genre show. What is that all about? It’s around a theme. What else is going on in your shows?
Dolphin: I’m trying to capture like a variety show vibe, but under a theme. So we did one in February called “Love stories, a little salty a little sweet” and it was poets storytellers musicians singer songwriters under this idea of love stories. And you can get a little salty with it and a little sweet with it, and we had comedians. So it was everything. It was this true mixed genre show. And I think, you know, with Providence being such a creative city, it just makes sense to me to try to pull a little bit from every audience niche and try to combine them. And something I’ve been saying at shows a lot is, You gotta use it or lose it. You gotta use the venues. You gotta go to shows. And I am a millennial. I’m in my 30s. I love to be in bed by 9. It’s really hard to get out for events, especially hosting them and doing them. But, you know, I just applaud anybody that’s going to live music shows right now or finding, like, that weird community variety show or that open mic and saying, you know what? I’m gonna roll the dice on this event and I’m gonna go and I’m gonna stay up past my bedtime because that is what we need to keep the creative community in Providence alive right now. We’ve got to show up. And so that’s my hypothesis with mixed genre shows is. Can we instead of like doing a really high niche show where it’s just singer songwriters singing really sad songs which preach to that, but can we kind of dabble in a little bit of everything and start cross pollinating our community, so we just strengthen the, the web of it, of it all.
Baumgartner: You have another new single, “Not Perfect,” which has some great couplets in it. One that jumped out to me, Bide my time, say I’m fine, tell another lie. Tell me about that.
Dolphin: Yeah, so, “Not Perfect” is a song I wrote about accepting your flaws. And I think there’s such a culture now around constant self improvement. And while I do believe in reflection and improvement and knowing where you’re wrong, I also think there’s just power in saying, I know I’m like this. I know I can be this way. I’m working on it. Or, maybe I’m not working on it, but I do know it.
And “bide my time, say I’m fine, tell another lie,” is a flaw that I find I have sometimes, which is, maybe I can wait it out, maybe if I just say I’m fine, I’ll manifest that I’m fine, but I’m lying about it. And so “Not Perfect” is this song that just kind of states my flaws, And I really had to resist this idea of writing a bridge or a turn of phrase that turned it from these are my flaws but I’m working on it. I really just wanted to focus on the theme of like, I’m just going to speak power to these things that I know I have and like leave it at that. And it was really challenging because a lot of my lyrics do kind of turn into the positive, which I love. And that’s my favorite thing about songwriting is how can you start a song one place and end it in another. But with Not Perfect, I really wanted to challenge myself to just sit with my flaws and think about them.
Baumgartner: Does your classical music education show up in any of the piano arrangements, or the band arrangements, or the music that you write?
Dolphin: Yeah, I actually think when you say, I hear a musical theater influence in your music, what you’re actually hearing is the classical background, because I don’t really like musical theater. I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud. I, I see so much value in musical theater and I have gone to Broadway shows and I love it and I love PPAC and I love everything about it, but it’s just not really for me. I think it’s fascinating. I love learning about it, but it’s not like my thing. So when people hear Broadway or musical theater in my work, I think what they’re actually hearing is a deep love and appreciation and background in classical music, the Romantic era, the symphonies. The very first thing I listened to, I remember my dad having Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in the house and like no two pieces there sound the same. You know, with classical music, you just go through these really long journeys. And I think that you can hear that in my music, where it takes you on these dynamic ebbs and flows. I think that that’s the thing when people are hearing all of these different changes and dynamic changes and chord changes. It feels akin to musical theater, but it’s actually all my flute playing and all my classical music background.
Baumgartner: Olivia Dolphin, thanks for talking with me.
Dolphin: Thank you so much for having me.
Listen to the interview and hear Dolphin’s “Ghost Story” single.
You can listen to Olivia Dolphin’s music and find upcoming show dates at oliviadolphinmusic.com.
