Echos has a new album called QUIET, IN YOUR SERVICE coming out on January 17.
Ahead of the release, vocalist Alexandra Norton is taking us through every track on the album to share the backstories behind the lyics.
1. MARIPOSA
I wanted the intro to this album to feel like a descent into the pain of what it feels like to be in a toxic relationship. Whether that be with another person, yourself, a situation. Mariposa means butterfly – and it’s a testament to entering that space of not realizing you’re about to come out stronger.
Mariposa was also a nickname someone used to call me. I love hiding little meanings like that in my songs – it’s almost like adding a piece of something that will forever belong to just me – even though the song isn’t just mine anymore – secrets that lie within the poetry still do. A friend of mine calls that “poetic justice.”
2. CAROUSEL
This song is about the point of the journey where you apprehensively enter a toxic cycle with someone. “Go slow I don’t wanna get sick on it” is about how you know something will make you sick but you’re willing to do it anyways.
3. QUIET, IN YOUR SERVICE
This song is about realizing that things are not what they seem and no longer wanting to make yourself small in service of others. The feeling of wanting to reclaim your voice and power. Realizing the pain was not worth it but again still feeling pulled to stay.
4. BRUISES
Bruises is a song about realizing emotional pain is starting to come to the surface. The bruises you’re left with after staying in something for too long are hard to ignore.
5. OVER & OVER
A song about self-sacrifice and knowing you’re back in the place you’ve been trying to escape – looking for closure but it keeps bringing you back into the cycle.
6. AWFUL THING
Oftentimes in a toxic relationship, we see the same patterns and belief systems resurfacing – maybe something that someone said continues to live inside of you. How often is it that we challenge those beliefs? Do they even belong to us in the first place? I wanted this interlude to feel like a metaphorical version of that, pulling the same line but from a different perspective from Mariposa “What do you want from me? Oh I’m not an awful thing”. It’s the realization that maybe that belief of not being good enough isn’t true anymore.
7. PAPERCUTS
Papercuts is about how you’re still convincing yourself to stay in the relationship because it’s not “that bad.” The death of a thousand papercuts is about how small negative instances are happening over time – not painful enough to make a change but painful enough to keep you stuck. This song felt like that release and realization and it’s when everyone around you is starting to notice it too.
8. WIRES
Wires is a yearning song, looking for reassurance, and a reflection of how much you changed yourself in order to be loved. Touching on more belief systems put in place by someone other than yourself “you said I’d be better, when I get better, Did I get better?”.
9. TOLERANCE
This feels like the most sacred song for me on this record. I recorded most of the vocals through my laptop, as I had left some important pieces of equipment at the studio on this day. I just felt so pulled to record at that moment. It felt like so much pain and years of ache came to the surface. I love singing in these tones, they feel the most natural to me, and so healing. The lyrics in the song are about building up a tolerance to pain, so you can look back at the situation and not feel powerless anymore. It leaves an open-ended piece to the record, and I love how it loops back into MARIPOSA to touch again on how it feels to be in this cycle and how absolutely hard it is to leave and heal. After making this record, I can honestly say that I healed parts of myself that I didn’t think could be healed from, and found a new sense of self. My hope is that anyone who has experienced something similar knows healing is possible. It takes time but there is a way out and people want to help you heal.