“Sarah,” the latest single from Yorta Yorta Country/Echuca-based singer-songwriter Kane Vincent, has been on a real journey, but it’s finally here for fans to enjoy. Listening to this heartfelt country-folk track, I’d hard to imagine it sounding any other way.
“I had a good friend, Grim Fawkner, a folk-country singer, come to Echuca to play a festival, but he got sick,” Kane recalled. “He was staying at my house while I had to go to Melbourne. He was there for four days with a massive fever and Grim has a song called ‘There Is Always Someone Worse Off Than You’. I thought I’d try cheer him up by parodying his song and calling it ‘The Situation’s Grim’. I never got it right, so it went unsent, unfinished, but the melody stuck in my head.”
The melody sparked an idea about a song about a lonely man aware that his sadness wasn’t necessarily depression but a foil to happiness. From that kernel, the song took on a new life during a Carter & Carter Songwriting Retreat in Victoria where Kane collaborated with Gretta Ziller, Anna Farquhar and Kate Dukes.
“We rejigged the chorus and one of them suggested, ‘What if Serotonin was a girl’s name?’ That’s when it became about pining for Sarah to come back,” Kane continued. “Gretta pushed me out of my comfort zone musically—I would never have had the balls to do the soaring vocals in front of people without her encouragement.”
Kane first performed the song at the 2024 CMAA Academy of Country Music and “people went mental. Over the 2024 Tamworth festival, people kept asking for it and for me to come and sing the song at their gigs.”
The song evolved further when Kane took it to producer Liam Kennedy-Clark.
“Liam understood the sound I was going for but then threw some ideas at me that I hadn’t considered, really pushing it to a new level,” Kane said. “It’s got interest and depth, with some really cool bits and pieces happening throughout.”
And now it’s here, for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!
Image used with permission from Bec Gracie Publicity
