The road to Slowly, It Dawns has been a life-long journey for 26-year old Spanish-American songwriter Victoria Canal. Her aptly titled debut album features songs written over the last several years—co-produced alongside Eg White in Los Angeles and Kevin Farzad in London—in between touring with Hozier, playing with Coldplay at Glastonbury, and performing solo dates around the world.
We were honored to host Canal at FLOODfest at SXSW in 2023, where the audience was transfixed by every word and note of her early-afternoon set. We also caught up with her later that year upon the release of her EP, Well Well, where she discussed fearlessly exploring the darkest nooks and crannies of the soul in her music since dropping her first track on Spotify in 2015, and revealed how long she’d been thinking about producing her first album. “I’ve been thinking about it my whole life,” she said. “It’s mostly just been a question of how and when and why. I’m just trying to be as thoughtful about it as possible. I just want to make sure that when I do put out an album, I really know who I am as an artist.”
With her years-in-the making debut full-length finally upon us, we asked Canal to walk us through her thoughts behind each track on the album. Listen to the album and read her reflections below.
1. “June Baby”
Last summer I was very naively in love with someone and it was a beautiful, oblivious season. I liked the idea of opening the album with the “youngest” song on the record, because the concept of Slowly, It Dawns is life dawning on you, and the wisdom/self-awareness you gain through making mistakes and trying things out. “June Baby” is all about puppy love and feeling hesitation out of fear of getting hurt.
2. “Talk”
Having a crush on someone can be highly inconvenient, especially if they’re unavailable in some way— and even if the energy is palpable, sometimes, most times, the best thing is not to talk about it. (And sometimes the sexiest thing is to not talk about it.)
3. “California Sober”
My horniest song by far, as a result of a very revelatory summer last year. Gosh. These days I blush listening to this song. Kind of a self-explanatory one, given all the innuendos around munchies. This and the following two songs I wrote and recorded with Eg White in London, a much more manic and mad-scientist-like experience than the fluffier, cozier tunes on the record, mostly made with Kevin Farzad at his home studio in LA.
4. “Cake”
Staying out way too late, and taking/drinking too many things out of sheer avoidance of responsibility and the weight of the world. There’s a delicious darkness to nightlife. I feel like this song is my "Everything in Its Right Place."
5. “15%”
This is the first self-aware song of the record. At this point, I’m looking back on the last four songs and regretting everything I ever wore or said—or think I’m the best thing ever, depending on the day. I call it “the God and the Goblin” complex.
6. “Vauxhall”
People outside the UK don’t seem to know this, but Vauxhall is a British car brand. I toured with someone I fell in love with and he had this “shitty Vauxhall” (his words), and we fantasize a lot about moving to the countryside and leaving our dreams behind for a normal, quiet life. I wrote this song with Rett Madison on JP Saxe’s piano in LA. Her vocals shine through at the end of the song (the wailing while we sing “I wish I had a choice”—that’s her, with a bit of me).
7. “How Can I Be a Person”
This is track one of the B-side, which conceptually is an older, wiser, and more self-aware Vic than the A-side, which felt pretty brash and over-confident in some ways. Now we enter what comes as life dawns on you—the complexities of self-image—this song in particular dealing with comparison. Wrote this after going down a rabbit hole looking at an artist’s Instagram, who I’d always felt was two steps ahead.
8. “Totally Fucking Fine”
I wrote this song when I had strep throat and couldn’t sing. I was staying at Jon Hopkins’ place in London and playing at his piano after having to cancel a couple shows. My experiment was, could I write an entire song, top to bottom, lyrics and all, not knowing what I would sound like singing it? Then I got in the studio and recorded it very late at night, and voila. Soon after, I took that take to S. Carey of Bon Iver (to a snowy cabin in rural Wisconsin) and we had a bunch of friends play on that instrumental section. That’s probably my favorite part of the record. For so much of my life, I’ve felt a strain to “make” and “be” and have a “voice”—only to realize just how much peace can be felt when you lay back, shut the F up, and be witness to the wonder of the world.
9. “Hollow”
I was sitting at my friend Jo’s piano in London (I’m realizing I write a lot of songs on friend’s pianos) when I saw some books on his shelf that ended up spelling out the first line of the chorus (“There’s no morning glory, no Bible or moral of the story to follow”). I think it was a Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith, and a Joan Didion, and a Bible. It wound up being kind of a song about atheism (I’m not an atheist, but I’m not religious—I don’t know anything). I called it “Hollow” and was so excited to show Jo—only to realize he’d shown me a song he’d written the week before called “Hollow,” which I’d totally forgotten. So I ended up giving him his due credit on the song. He also wrote the line “Well it’s all in the eyes, dear," which is a great line. Thank you, Jo!
10. “Barely”
This song came out pretty quickly one day sitting with Ehren Ebbage and Sara Boe in London. We’d gone out to lay on the grass and were talking about how every single person around us has the same amount of complexity and depth in their life that we do. I think about that all the time, but this was the first song where I tried to put it into words.
11. “Black Swan”
“Black Swan” and “Swan Song” are sister songs. I wanted to be sure to include them on the record because even though they came out on the last two EPs before the album, I feel like they still represent me and my innermost soul. “Black Swan” is about perfectionism and constantly chasing being something else. To this day I think this is one of my favorite songs I’ve written.
12. “Swan Song”
I’ll tell you what I tend to say at my shows: over COVID, I moved back in with my parents and shortly after found out that a very close loved one was diagnosed with a fatal illness. It prompted a lot of conversations about grief, life, loss, and what really matters—and I think I’ve got it. I think the thing that really matters in life is: forgiveness. Because it’s the hardest thing to do toward others and it’s even harder to do toward yourself. I was listening to a podcast on grief at the time and it talked about the four things to say to those you love before you die: thank you, I love you, I forgive you, and can you forgive me. That’s what this song is about, and it felt right to have it be the album closer because it’s a goodbye, an end of life, and this album represents the arc of life and growing older.
