By Abi Falin
Talking with Emily Bea feels like home. Listening to her responses to my questions, I felt like I was really getting to know a piece of her soul.
Growing up, Emily’s family embraced music. Her mother emphasized the significance of music, so she and her siblings took piano lessons from a young age. At the same time, her dad introduced her and her siblings to soccer. Emily says, “It’s the family joke that music was a requirement where soccer was an option.”
Emily loved soccer but tore her ACL right before high school soccer tryouts freshman year. The six-to-nine-month recovery process compelled Emily to let go of soccer for a while and focus on other hobbies. Teenage Emily found solace in her obsession with all things music. She learned to play guitar, mandolin, violin, and ukulele and enrolled in voice lessons.
Two months after her return to soccer, she tore the same ACL again.
This was a really difficult time for Emily, but she came to the conclusion that she was just going to have to “dive into music.” Emily laughed that she couldn’t tear her ACL by singing, so it was a safe route. Her separation from soccer was a big, beautiful blessing in disguise. “I found how beautiful music is for healing and coping with life,” Emily says.
Beyond being personally healing for her, those who listen to Emily Bea can find a piece of themselves in the words and the feelings present in her art. Emily’s music feels like having a conversation with a friend in a coffee shop: soothing, nostalgic, and personal. With its delicate piano and guitar and folky, easy-listening storytelling, it draws listeners in and touches hearts.
Emily says the origin of her inspiration is “a very real and honest place.” This honesty, she believes, makes her music more relatable and meaningful to its listeners. Her personal relationships and experiences are especially prominent in her 2021 album, Coming Back Home.
Coming Back Home includes songs dedicated to Emily’s mother, father, and grandparents. “Forever With You” draws inspiration from the love story of her great-grandparents. About meeting her great-grandpa, Emily’s great-grandma said, “All it took was a dance to know that I liked him, and I wanted to dance with him the rest of my life.”
“The song is a crowd favorite and still one of my most cherished songs,” Emily says.
The album connects with emotions felt universally. “Homesick” resonates with anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one. Emily wrote this song in remembrance and honor of her twin sister who passed away. The words of the song are poignant and touching. Emily sings about wandering towards the place “where [her] heart feels at home.” The lyrics about longing for a departed presence capture the bittersweet ache of incompleteness.
Emily shares her emotional journey with a miscarriage with her song “Waiting for You,” which she wrote in honor of the baby that she lost. Many women can heavily relate to this song. It speaks of the grey skies of loss but culminates on a hopeful note, with the promise of a rainbow after rain.
Coming Back Home stands as a nostalgic album, themed around the concept of home. Its delicate lyrics offer a certain familiarity to listeners, allowing them to find their own connections within the personal narratives. “I think each listener can listen to one of those songs and feel and think of somebody in their life,” Emily says.
When she writes her music, Emily usually works in solitude, finding the writing process to be an intimate and therapeutic experience. During the recording phase, she collaborates with producers and studio musicians, as well as her younger brother, Jake, who she says lays down “some cool, textural, solo guitar parts” in her songs.
Emily draws inspiration from her early influences like Adele and Ingrid Michaelson. “I kind of created my sound based off of both of them combined,” she says. Lovers of wholesome, laid-back storytellers like Norah Jones, JP Saxe, and Ben Rector will love Emily Bea’s narratives.
Emily is currently working on an EP, set to release next year. She’s also in the process of relocating to Nashville, Tennessee in the spring – something she hopes will lead to new opportunities and growth for herself and her music career. Her biggest dream is to play with her current favorite artist, Ben Rector.
Make sure to follow Emily Bea on Instagram. You can listen to “Homesick” below!