Chloe Jones releases ‘Crocodile’

‘Crocodile’ is the new single from Manchester based singer songwriter Chloe Jones. The song has an instant impact, the opening much like what you could expect from a spaghetti western, that would come complete with whiskey sliding down a bar and an entrance to a bar through those swing doors. With that intro, you already know this song has more of a country feel than previous releases from Chloe, with pedal steel and banjo going a long way in creating the atmospheric vibe.

Within that Western vibe, Chloe tells a story of a protagonist who is finding life a struggle. Lyrics such as ‘Some days, I just wanna stay home, cry myself to sleep, just to get me through the day’ illustrate the struggle with a wondering if they can be happy for just a while.

I caught up with Chloe this week to ask her all about the song.

Hi Chloe, can you give us an insight into how ‘Crocodile’ initially came to life?

I’m always looking for ways to challenge myself creatively, especially when it comes to writing. One day I came across a writing exercise where you would take the first headline you see when flicking through a newspaper, you would then use that headline as the hook of the song and you would form a structure around that. I picked up a paper and saw a headline that was something along the lines of ‘in a while crocodile’, I didn’t read the article as I wanted the ideas to come organically, so I have no clue what the actual story was about but that’s where ‘Crocodile’ started! I try to keep the true meanings of my songs quite ambiguous as I like an audience to come up with their own ideas of what may be happening/who the characters may be in my songs. I feel ‘Crocodile’ is one of these ambiguous ones – I have my own interpretation of what the lyrics mean and who or what the crocodile may be, but I think it is interesting when listeners come up with their own ideas too, especially since this is where the initial idea for the song came about – I interpreted my own story from the story that was in the newspaper!

And how exciting was it taking it into the studio and creating this brilliant finished product?

Studio days are an absolute blast, especially when the songs that I’ve initially played acoustically take on a whole new life once other musicians and instruments are involved. I feel that ‘Crocodile’ has a bit more bite (no pun intended) to it than my other more mellow releases, so it was really exciting to see it all come together with the addition of sounds that I love such as percussion, pedal steel guitar, cello etc.. I especially enjoy the way the music builds climactically throughout the song.

You’ve been playing ‘Crocodile’ for a while now live, what was it about the song that made it the right choice to be a single release?

It’s a song that I still enjoy performing live despite it not being a brand new creation, it has a different energy compared to some of my other songs and I wanted to explore the musicality of it in the studio. Lockdown stalled a lot of my studio time over the past couple of years so there has been a delay in getting ‘Crocodile’ and my other songs out into the world but it’s only made me eager to get more done, in fact I am back in the studio this week making progress on my future releases so watch this space!

 

Picking up on Chloe’s point about listeners having their own inerpretation of a song, I came away thinking she was writing about an individual who has a tough and somewhat listless life and is yearning for excitement that verges on danger, and getting involved with a person (or even a situation) that maybe you shouldn’t – that being the ‘Crocodile’.

‘Crocodile‘ is out now on all platforms.

Review written by Nick Cantwell (twitter.com/nickcmanagement)