Most of us hate cleaning our cars. Procrastinating on this necessary evil can lead to some unexpected discoveries. If we’re lucky, we might find a few coins we’d forgotten we’d stashed in the glovebox. If we’re unlucky, we might find a long-lost letter from our ex like Eora/Sydney muso Nicole Issa. Ouch. She channeled all the emotions from that fateful discovery into her latest single “Notes in My Car.”
“My ex-partner knew I hated cleaning my car, so he would write little love letters and plant them in secret spots in my car … once every couple of months when I finally built up the energy to clean, I would find these little cute notes,” she explained. Nicole’s car sat neglected during the lockdowns, so when she emerged back into the world, six months after they broke up, the discovery of one of these notes took a toll.
“It shattered me,” she recalled. “ It said something like when you find this I hope you know there is someone out there that always loves you. I remember finding it ironic as when we had separated he had told me he had fallen out of love with me.”
While the pain of finding the note was hard, Nicole sees the silver lining that at least this song came out of it. I couldn’t agree more. This heartfelt piano ballad hits all the right notes. What a beautiful, cathartic track that is going to resonate with anyone who’s ever found their feelings for someone in their past brought back to the surface.
Photo credit: Zoë Dubuc
