It took more than a year, but Sabrina Song’s debut single, “Strawberry,” finally found an audience in 2023—to the tune of more than four million streams. A well-timed grant from the New York Foundation For The Arts helped fund her 2024 debut, You Could Stay In One Spot, And I’d Love You The Same. Meanwhile, the Brooklyn-based artist has been racking up writing and production credits through her work with Mercer Henderson, Pom Pom Squad, Sofia D’Angelo and others. This collaborative spirit also informed the deluxe edition of You Could Stay, which features reinterpretations of her songs by peers like Emory and Ok Cowgirl.
Since then, Song has returned to writing without a plan. The first half-dozen tracks that emerged coalesced into Big Trick (Sabrina Song/Many Hats), a meditative indie-folk stunner that explores, among other things, romantic vulnerability and the friction between ambition and acceptance.
“The songs slowly started to take shape around a theme of disillusionment, which is what led me to the title,” says Song. “The EP delves into the vulnerability of ugly feelings, letting yourself change your mind and feeling the full spectrum of your emotions.”
Here’s more on Big Trick from Song.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Background Actor”
“I wanted this to feel like it was reaching a fever pitch, like the whole song was put in a blender for a few seconds halfway through, before tightening back up and continuing. Sometimes you have to let yourself feel upset, angry, irritated, rejected, etc. I wanted to portray those feelings with a bit of cheekiness and bite.”
2) “Lock”
“This was written from the perspective of loving someone who’s struggling and choosing to continue to be there for them. As soon as I started writing it, I knew I’d produce it from start to finish myself. I just knew how I wanted it to sound from the very beginning.”
3) “Big Trick”
“The title track captures the little moments of insecurity in a relationship and what can happen when a love feels like it’s too good to be true … vignettes of small shifts in dynamic or things left unsaid. Making this song with my friends Lucas (Wurman) and Tom (Brecker) was the tipping point for this whole project.”
4) “Broken Machine”
“This song came about in a very natural way. It was the first song I wrote for the project before I knew what the project would be. In some ways, it’s kind of a thesis statement for the EP—just taking stock of my life and how I spend my time and trying to give myself grace … very stream-of-consciousness writing.”
5) “Play It Cool”
“A love song about falling head over heels for someone and being nearly embarrassed about how intense a feeling it is. I wanted to capture the lightness and playfulness of that feeling. I made this song with Greer Baxter and Michael Edwards, and I feel like we didn’t overthink anything. It just came together so naturally in a way I haven’t really experienced before.”
6) “Moving Target”
“I wrote this about the feeling of plateauing in your mid-20s—accepting the good that life has brought you while still yearning for more. I wanted the breakdowns to sound like a collage … moments blurring, time passing and warping.”
See Sabrina Song live.
