Emily Franke: A Light Willow With Powerful Lyrics.
The Storyteller, Actress, Barista and Singer
A light willow. A simple treasure of a voice swiftly draws from her lips and into your ears. Emily Franke’s blissful sound is a constant reminder that there is beauty in this world. Recent college graduate and Chicago Native, Emily Franke, began her endeavors playing the guitar and writing music when Taylor Swift released her album Red. She stated that “I don’t know what it was but I had to play the guitar” and taught herself immediately using google images of chord charts.
Emily Franke is one talented artist, storyteller, barista, and actress finding her way through the grounds of Chicago. A folkish yet pop musician telling stories of her past experiences and relationships gifts us with her soft vulnerability. When I listen to her music, I can imagine a delicate feather dancing throughout the forest green in the springtime. Though in her most recent songs, Pretty Pissed and Supernova, I can imagine that same feather dancing slow motion in outer space with a laser show going on in the background. She is quite versatile in her music to say the least.
In regard to her endeavors as an actress, Emily graduated college with a degree in Theatre Performance. With slight bitterness, the impact of Covid-19 unfortunately shorted her ability to perform since acting classes don’t really translate well via zoom. Although this may have halted her, I have confidence that she will land a role soon.
Mother Nature
The story of her song Mother Nature is rather interesting. It all began when Emily went home for one weekend and a tree nonchalantly fell on her college house when she wasn’t there. Thus, influencing Emily and her roommates to find another roof over there heads before the start of their senior year in college all in the midst Covid-19 going around. Preferably a house without a massive old tree near it. Although everyone there was perfectly okay, this tree influenced the roots to pull from underneath a friendship of Emily’s’. The song is simply a metaphor for things falling apart.
Emily’s sound in Supernova and Pretty Pissed takes a shift from what she is used to creating and allows her to successfully explore production beyond her comfort zone. The premise for Supernova was to “write a few verses then make it sound cool” and focus solely on producing it. Within a couple days this spacey Olivia Rodrigo song was completed. Franke’s elaborate songwriting process consists of compiling bits and pieces a feeling and putting it all together as cohesive story with a bigger picture.
Featured on Mother Nature and her most recent song Pretty Pissed is Sammy Haig who is a stellar trumpet player that she met at a Quadio songwriting online songwriting retreat. If you haven’t heard about Quadio, it is a dope platform for college creatives to connect with each other and collaborate. I’m not getting paid to say this I just wanted to put you on to something cool.
Most recently, the amazing Emily Franke headlined her first show back at Uncommon Ground in Chicago with Michelle McCarthy and Sara Coco opening for her. Make sure to check out Emily Franke as she goes through her twenty’s and shares new music and experiences!
The BuellerWritten By: Zach Huseth
