TRACK-BY-TRACK: ASHA JEFFERIES TAKES US THROUGH 'DESIRE IS AN ANGEL'
Her Australian tour kicks off this weekend!
Image: Meg Siejka
Australian songwriter, Asha Jefferies recently dropped her new album, Desire Is An Angel, and is about to hit the road on her Australian tour. To celebrate, she's taking us through the collection of songs track-by-track...
Jefferies will kick off her east coast tour this Saturday, November 7 at Black Bear Lodge in Meanjin/Brisbane. The run of shows will continue on to The Bridge in Djaara/Castlemaine on November 14, and The Evelyn Hotel in Naarm/Melbourne on November 19, before wrapping up at OAF Gallery in Eora/Sydney on November 26. Tickets are on sale now.
BACKWARDS BABY
I wrote Backwards Baby reflecting on being in love with someone who loved to reminisce on the past. Writing this song helped me confront how tragic and hard it was to love this person. It is so difficult to be with someone who is stuck in the past.
As much as it was hurtful to watch, I realised it was a pattern out of my hands, and that sometimes the way people treat you actually has nothing to do with you: “there goes my backwards baby”.
LILO & STITCH
I started writing Lilo & Switch after watching a boy nearly drown on the beach. Apparently he’d seen a jellyfish in the water and immediately passed out. His friends carried him onto the beach and I rushed over to help put him on his side. It wasn’t long before he opened his eyes and was laughing again. It made me think about how much the body loves to be alive. And how beautiful that there is a deep switch in all of us, desiring life.
ART OF SUGGESTION
I wrote Art of Suggestion about being swept away by the undertow of desire. Before confirmation is revealed and you know someone is interested in you, there is a heavy, electrifying drive to project your desires onto them. Daydreaming has taught me that sometimes, the exhilaration of seduction is less about contact and more about the unknown.
COOL GUY
This song wrote itself very quickly after my first trip to New York. Listening back, I realised I am more often than not, in denial when I’m longing for something or someone. I guess it’s a classic story of unrequited love - yearning feels heavier, more punishing and unproductive when it’s not reciprocated. And it sucks, I’d really like to pretend to be the cool guy if possible.
(DESIRE IS) AN ANGEL
Tara Brach, my favourite meditation teacher and spiritual hero, talks about desire as “a revolution of tenderness”. She asks, “how do we let desire carry us back into our fullness?”. This idea that we can honour desire as a spiritual compass really stuck with me and further expanded after a conversation I recorded with my friend Siobhan, “it helps us to find our home” she says. Making this album I thought a lot about how desire can feel like a character that wakes you up. It felt like desire appeared in my life, the same way an angel might. A luminous and mysterious light guiding me towards the unknown.
WHY DOES YOUR GIRL LOOK LIKE ME?
This song is a really true representation of the insanity of projecting. I couldn’t help but hyper analyse what it meant if my ex’s new girlfriend DID look like me. It was a scary thought but also a comforting one too. I was able to spill a lot of deep reflection about the relationship out onto this song which I’m grateful for. Alex (Haines) who recorded guitars on the album really went wild on this one. I told him to go full clown and I like how the guitars dance around obscure and off-beat, as if they’re someone’s thoughts going crazy.
WALRUS
I was on a flight back from Melbourne and a friend had suggested I read this book called Delta of Venus and I nearly threw up. It was really scary erotica but I kinda couldn't put it down. It was like a car-crash I couldn’t look away from. It made me feel equally terrified and on fire. I wrote Walrus about that feeling - I felt so dangerously and desperately deep in longing, it was like this heaviness weighing me down while at the same time, feeling so down for anything.
WHAT THE HELL
This was the first song I wrote for the record. It literally took me years to finish though and the chorus sat on its own for a very long time. I wanted it to feel celebratory, not self-centred. And walk the line of expressing forgiveness and resentment. It’s a song about wanting someone’s words to reflect their actions and vice versa. In early 2025, George and I stayed in a cabin in UKI, NSW to work on demo’s and when we finished this song, he spun me around as we replayed the sax solo.
LEFTOVERS
This was written about the type of heartbreak that happens pining over someone, long after things have ended. It can feel so wasteful not to be with someone you still love. It’s like making a meal and storing the leftovers in your fridge for months, knowing you can’t consume it but it’s too slippery and physically impossible to dispose of. This song went through a lot of alterations - it sat as a piano ballad, then went towards a folk-groove type of song in London but once I came back to Australia, I recorded my own version sitting in my loungeroom one night on guitar. It felt very raw and in the moment, the best way to close Desire Is An Angel.
Desire Is An Angel is out now.
DESIRE IS AN ANGEL TOUR DATES
Sat 7 Nov - Black Bear Lodge, Meanjin/Brisbane
Sat 14 Nov - The Bridge, Djaara/Castlemaine
Thur 19 Nov - The Evelyn Hotel, Naarm/Melbourne
Thur 26 Nov - OAF Gallery, Eora/Sydney
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