New Music: Ruby Gill – Porchlight

The loudest emotions can be expressed in the stillest voice and in the quietest of moments. Ruby Gill’s Porchlight does just that.

A song from her Fishing is not about fishing LP, it can be best absorbed at the end of the night, or best taken on board when you fear your relationship might be ending. Gill has a folky, friendly vocal style, one that fleshes out the light-spangled moments that made love spark and can make it endure well into the future.

It’s not about hanging on to what you’ve got but realising its true value and the battles we have to fight with ourselves and our own traumas to get to that point of equilibrium. Queer relationships have so much to contend with, working our way through our childhoods to find a way forward, and that is often the case for our loved one. As the saying goes, ‘It gets better,’ and the 70s feel of Porchlight, in both the arrangement and lyrics, acts as a moving aide memoire for that important piece of advice.

The song has a deeply resonant meaning for Gill; “When my partner and I started dating, we did something very gay, which was to constantly trigger each other in an unending stack of triggers, and then gently try and rewrite our nervous systems with each other, one ghost at a time.”

“This song was about hoping that there was a time, one day, when the past wouldn’t live in the present, when we would be able to see each other for exactly who we are and not the image of past people superimposed over us. It is about loving a real person.”

Fishing is not about fishing is out on the 16th of October, and you can pre-order the digital edition on Bandcamp. Gill tours the UK, supporting GORDI, this month. Get info on those UK tour dates by checking out Ruby Gill’s Facebook and Instagram feeds.