Canadian singer-songwriter Hannah Georgas just released her latest album, All That Emotion, last month. The record was produced by Aaron Dessner, and now she has recruited Dessner’s The National bandmate Matt Berninger to provide vocals on a new version of “Pray It Away.” Berninger’s baritone is a perfect addition to the track, and Georgas says of it:
“In a lot of ways, All That Emotion is a personal record, but ‘Pray It Away’ ended up being very collaborative. I co-wrote the song with my producer Aaron Dessner, who sent me an instrumental during the time I was writing and demoing.
A close friend of mine inspired the lyrics. She told me over dinner one night that a family member didn’t want to attend her wedding because she was marrying a woman. I wrote the song the next day using the chord progression from Aaron’s demo. It was upsetting to see my friend go through what she was dealing with at a time where she should have been celebrating.
While Aaron and I were recording this song together, he mentioned it could be really great to ask Matt Berninger to sing on it. Ironically, it wasn’t until the pandemic hit when we were actually able to follow through with this idea, together. It’s so lovely it all worked out and we were able to make it happen in the end.”
Meanwhile, Georgas recently participated in our Indie Mixtape 20 Q&A series, and the four words she chose to describe her music were “Personal, emotive, indie, pop.”
Listen to “Pray It Away” above, and check out our recent interview with Berninger here.
