Song Premiere: Linda Draper, “Hollow”

Channeling the finger-plucked folk music of Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, Linda Draper gets back to her acoustic roots with “Hollow,” the new single from Edgewise. It’s a haunting ballad, with dark lyrics that contrast Draper’s sweet, lilting voice. “I’ll blow away your sorrow; I am the promise of good fortune and all that is hollow,” she sings like a siren, luring some would-be lover to his grisly doom.

Or is the song a metaphor for a poorly-led life?

“When I wrote this song,” she says, “I was thinking back to a conversation I overheard on a plane. The woman was talking about her step-son not being committed to any ‘real’ career, and that all he wanted to do was write. She said that he better ‘get it out of his system.’ As I heard this, while looking out the window at the perfectly blue sky and clouds, I thought about another of my inspirations for the song, Nick Drake, and what a dull world this would be if he had been told this and listened.”

Look for Edgewise on May 21.