Billie Marten – “Cartoon People”

Katie Silvester

Billie Marten – “Cartoon People”

Katie Silvester

English singer-songwriter Billie Marten, one of our Artists To Watch, has a forthcoming sophomore full-length called Feeding Seahorses By Hand out soon. It’s the follow-up to her sophisticated debut album Writing Of Blues And Yellows, which she released at age 15. Like the lead single from Seahorses, “Betsy,” the newest single “Cartoon People” takes a definite political slant.

“Cartoon People” is a deceptively dreamy and soft-spoken ballad. The narrator gives a fictional appraisal of Donald Trump “from the perspective of his daughter,” according to a press release. Marten gives further insight into the song, citing her own personal growth as inspiration:

I just had this image of them sat in some smokey, sleazy bar downtown, with him buying her drinks to keep her mouth shut. “Baby there’s a fire today” acts as the nursery rhyme refrain, kind of like “London’s burning.” It’s all sweet and innocent melody wise but it’s really expressing the way the planet’s crumbling a little.

I feel like I’m more awake to society than I was aged 15. That’s bound to happen. This record is definitely not as much about me. It’s about my view on other people, other things.

Listen to “Cartoon People” below.

Feeding Seahorses By Hand is out 4/26.

more from New Music