Rose Melburg was part of Tiger Trap, Go Sailor, and The Softies, three bands that helped define twee pop. She has a grasp of human emotion that radiates from both her and her music, perfectly represented in this interview with The Rumpus:
The Rumpus: "There’s a lyric from your song ‘Golden Gate Bridge’, “I’m sorry that you didn’t love me / Cross out that first time we kissed.” You sing it in this very beautiful, low-key way. If certain bands got their hands on that line, they’d feel a need to scream it. How did you come up with that aesthetic where you talk about painful things, but with such beautiful harmonies and without lashing out?"
Rose Melburg: "It wasn’t really conscious. Those were the sounds of those feelings. To me, anger is powerful and intense, but sustained anger is really poisonous. Even if I was really angry about something, what I wanted to get through was the point past the anger, what’s left after the anger, which is a heavy heart. When the initial pain is gone, you’re left with feelings like frustration, regret, sadness, failure. And those don’t sound screaming and intense. Those are pensive.
The reality of those feelings is that they’re sustained over time and they’re kind of beautiful in their own way because they’re intertwined with the beauty of life. I think of harmonies as that, the way that your pain and your joy live symbiotically all the time. I think that a sad sentiment with a beautiful melody is a beautiful representation of life or living with pain."
source: one
