“Good girls have edges that the boys can’t break,” Van Plating remembers her mother saying to her. It’s a line that comes back to her in the bittersweet singalong chorus to ‘Orange Blossom Child.’
“You don’t get your significance from your role or your relationship to other people,” she explains. “It’s all about who you are, your intrinsic ‘you-ness’. That’s what makes you special and it’s worth celebrating.”
Taken from her keenly anticipated new album of the same name, ‘Orange Blossom Child’ is a dreamy slice of power pop reminiscent of the playful country-leanings of Jenny Lewis or Neko Case. It’s the kind of song that could have soundtracked The O.C.‘s Marissa and Ryan driving around Newport Beach in his beige Toyota Land Cruiser just as the sun slips down below the horizon.
“Jenny Lee passed away last year. Cancer, I think,” Van Plating says about the inspiration behind the song. “Everyone tells us to dream big, and she sure did.”
“Jenny’s dreams stayed big even when life didn’t cooperate. She wasn’t good in the obvious ways, but she was a brilliant cartoonist. After disappearing for years, she returned home and spent her last working years tending bar at the local restaurant.”