Every week, Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
We all need to focus our frustrations somewhere — the gym, the page, the pillow that’s perfect for screaming into. Artists tend to pour theirs into their craft, which is how Hanna Simone wound up with the song “Sunday Offering” that we’re premiering here.
This is no rage session, though. For one thing, Simone’s brand of music doesn’t really fall along those lines. For another, the Milwaukee singer-songwriter decided to go deeper when she felt that the world had it in for her and, rather than being overwhelmed, “thought about what makes me feel safe.”
“I could see the trees out the window, green and lively, and it brought back childhood memories,” she continued. “My greatest adventures happened playing in my own backyard growing up. I was free, ruthless, and innocent. ‘Sunday Offering’ is me facing the things in life that rattle my happiness and telling them off like little Hanna would.
“We all could do well to remember the parts of ourselves that are untouchable. We owe those evil things nothing, and we owe ourselves everything.”
It’s a lovely sentiment for a lovely song. Starting simply with Elly Bird’s acoustic guitar and Simone’s honey-touched vocals, “Sunday Offering” gently introduces other elements in a way that seems to mimic her state of mind at the time — resilient despite everything life’s throwing at you:
Not much has changed
They still take and take
The thing they do not know
Is the freedom we forget we own
The moments when the chaos
Feels like an avalanche of rocks
My mind is like an army
Not any law can touch
“Sunday Offering” will play live on 88Nine throughout the day (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30, 9:30 p.m.) and is always available on demand using the player at the top of the page. The single gets its official release this Friday, May 24, and Simone will open for Moonglow that night at Anodyne on Bruce. She’ll also play a noontime slot at the Briggs & Stratton Big Backyard at Summerfest on June 27.
