It’s always a little odd returning to your childhood home—everything always looks a little smaller than you remember it, and everything you see around the house triggers a memory that you maybe haven’t thought about in the years since they first occurred, forcing you to think about these things from a significantly altered perspective. This is the idea that St. Panther explores on “Places,” her recent single which she calls “the most reflective song I’ve written about my life.” The contemplative tune sees the songwriter fighting to process many of her childhood memories while a hip-hop drum beat and soft piano provide a gentle soundtrack.
“As artists, I think we’re expected to just be ready to rip the bandages off of some of the most intimate parts of our lives as soon as we sit down to record,” she shares. “This song served to open the dialogue between me and a younger self that is still working to share. As people, I think we grow up told what our paths should be. This song is a space where I put the feeling of having a life farther from that—that a lot of the time I had to go my own way, and take myself through so many spaces to find my path. I would say this is a song welcoming the idea that all those detours in life are valid, they brought us here.”
In the track’s new visual, St. Panther visits what we can only assume to be her childhood home, where a much younger version of herself (wearing identical clothing to her present-day self) watches TV, writes in a notebook, and takes her guitar to the park. “The best part of making the video had to be Z (little me in the video),” St. Panther recalls. “First of all this kid showed up to set like, ‘When’s lunch?’ and all of us were laughing thinking this kid is actually a star. I’ll always remember it as the day an eight-year-old asked me ‘What is that?’ when I pulled out a cassette player. Played her Stevie Wonder ‘In Square Circle’ for the first time. It was a good day.”
Watch the video below.
