Track By Track: Ali Barter - 'Hello, I'm Doing My Best'
Pop-punk artist Ali Barter has just released her second album ‘Hello, I’m Doing My Best’, which sees her hitting her most honest with this collection of sugary pop tunes. She took a moment to us through the album - track by track.
Lester
This is an ode to my Dad. I was inspired to write this song after watching American Beauty. The main character Lester Burnham reminds me of my Dad, who passed away about 10 years ago. He was a cheeky, loveable, troubled, hilarious and infuriating man whom I had a complicated relationship with. Towards the end of his life, he went though a bit of a mid life crisis and I had that moment where I saw him a just a person figuring it out, rather than just my Dad.
Ur A Piece Of Shit
This is a love letter to my best friends, who I grew up with and shared fucked up experiences with through teenage years and early adulthood. Now we are grown up and all have our failings but we go through this life together. All our lives are wonderful and a also total mess but we have each other so it’s ok.
History Of Boys
This song is about my relationship to excess. I am an all or nothing kind girl, in every aspect of my life. Food, sex, smoking, relationships… I can abuse anything on the right day.
Big Ones
This song is about opinions. Big ones and small ones. They may come from people close to us like family or employers or they may be societal options or opinions we have of our selves. Either way, this song is about remembering who you are and being true to that.
Cocktail Bar
I wrote Cocktail Bar in San Fransisco. I was sitting in a bar and had a flashback to an experience I had about ten years ago. The song essentially describes the confusion about my behaviour with alcohol. I was doing things that didn’t align with my values, I was becoming someone I didn’t recognise. I was not the girl that I wanted to be.
January
This song is my ode to January who seems to roll around every year and I’m still trying to fix the same things as the year before. The older I get the more I realise that I don’t change, this is all I got. So fuck it.
Backseat
The only real love song on the record, it’s the story of me admiring a boy from afar and then having a nice time with him in the backseat of my car. It’s a true story ;)
Magoo
This song was inspired by frustrating conversations with a friend who was complaining all the time. I have this tendency myself so it’s easy for me to identify and empathise, but also criticise.
Are You Happy Now?
I keep having a dream about an ex boyfriend who left me as his music career was taking off. I often have dreams about running into him at airports.
This Girl
I have often wondered who I’m talking to in this song. I have felt hemmed in by many things in my life, mostly my own head, telling me I’m not good enough, “it’s too hard” or I was locked in a cycle of addiction which made it hard for me to move forward. This song is partly me talking to myself, telling myself to step up and also a wish for the girl I want to be. Or maybe I already am.
I Won’t Lie
This is me talking to my bad behaviour and impulses. Things that even as I get older and (supposedly) wiser, still follow me around, taunting me. I can have everything I ever wanted and then this little voice comes into my head telling me to to tear it down. I might be crazy…