How Ellen put Preston on the Hollywood radar
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Melbourne indie music artist Courtney Barnett pictured in Southbank, Melbourne. Picture: Ian Currie
Source: News Corp Australia
MELBOURNE singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has revealed the sad backstory to a ballad about northern suburb Preston which she performed on US prime time television.
Barnett, whose songs detail the minutiae of everyday Melbourne life, played her song Depreston, about a house hunting expedition, on the top-rating The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Barnett, tipped by every music bible as the next big thing, was described by DeGeneres as her favourite new artist. Ellen added: “I love her so much.”
Barnett said the song is about a home inspection in a deceased estate.
The song says: “I see the handrail in the shower, the collection of those canisters for coffee, tea and flour, and a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam.
“And I can’t think of floorboards anymore, whether the front room faces south or north, and I wonder what she bought it for?”
Barnett, 23, told Confidential: “The old lady who lived there had passed away and all of her stuff was still in the house — records on the shelf and the books on the table. It’s a mortality observation … and thinking about the price of property over the price of sentiments.”
Her new album, Sometimes I Sit And Think … Sometimes I Just Sit, is released on Monday.
“I pick up on small parts of my everyday life and magnify them a bit,” the Northcote-based Barnett said.
“I spend a lot of time trying to say something mundane in a poetic way.”
She is grateful for support from tastemakers like DeGeneres, but added: “Descriptions like ‘indie darling’ are over the top.”
Originally published as How Ellen put Preston on the Hollywood radar
www.news.com.au/entertainment/music
