Guest Post: roller disco girl

Rosie on Rosie with some Rosie on Steve

Earlier this year, I helped my wonderful friend Rosie produce a new song. It’s a fun, charming, slightly lo-fi bedroom pop tune, and was released earlier this week:

I asked Rosie to write a few words for this post, and here’s what she said:

“this track is inspired by a night early in my relationship with my girlfriend when she rented out a roller disco rink on the outskirts of montreal for 20 of her closest friends. i was nervous to meet so many new people and scared of looking silly on the dancefloor, but she was dazzling, the life of the party, dancing circles around me.

the song is about the joy of finding someone who takes you out of your comfort zone and letting yourself fall for her - literally and metaphorically. i wrote it the way i write a lot of songs, in bed with my midi keyboard. i'm not much of a beatmaker but knew i wanted a dark, distant sound (what the kids call 'lo-fi'?) so i made a demo with just vocals, keys and a simple beat, adding a low filter cutoff.

taking it into the studio with steve (aka, from my bedroom to his) meant building up a whole world around that demo. steve mixed my EP, myth between,¹ but this was the first time we built a song from demo to finish together, and it was so easy and fun. we have a mutual trust and respect that makes it possible to try things out and to mess around, and also allows me to feel confident pushing for what i want (can we just move that part a fraction earlier etc. etc...)

we added more synths including the riff in the chorus, programmed complex drums together, and re-did the vocals. i imagined this as a somewhat aloof pop song, something like born at midnite or grace ives, but steve encouraged me to embrace the poppiness: this is an earnest love song! i think we ended up in the middle: a cool infatuation, casually head-over-heels. it maybe captures something about the ways we consciously (or subconsciously) try to hold ourselves back from falling in love, even as it takes over. also, i just like the vibe.

happy pride month to all the roller disco girls and gays out there. xo”

To that, I’ll just add that I think roller disco girl is a perfect little pop song, and Rosie nailed the vocals in like two takes or something, which was impressive to watch/hear. Yay.

1. Which Exclaim! called one of the best EPs of 2022.