this song is many things for me. for one, it's the most fun i have ever had experimenting with lyrics and writing. i had so many visuals, so many things i wanted to show that i feel like i did a really good job doing. 

this song is about the importance of music in our culture, especially on lgbtq culture. throughout the pandemic, one of the only ways i felt connected to anyone was through music. i spent the first few months of 2020 working on my sophomore ep, 'garden of eden' and that, i swear, is the only reason i made it through. music and the demand my mind had to make it kept prevailing through massive bouts of depression and anxiety dealing with the world around me. i had no one in la except teddy and my fellow other co-writers who worked on that ep with me. i found a lot of comfort online, especially in watching queer creators and content, and connecting with so many of the queer fans i have whose support helped me through my insecurities around releasing music.

so when i met dee, in 2021, and we were experimenting with writing crazy shit, and really starting to get what we were writing, i wanted so desperately to write about the impact of music on our society. how music in every form connects us all in one way or another. in november of 2021, i got to experience my first big concert since 2019: the harry styles tour at the forum. i cried that entire show, not just for my love of harry, but because of the space we were in. 50,000+ people, a lot of whom were lgbtq (a girl came out to her mother as lesbian during the talking portion harry does at his shows which made both my partner and i cry a lot). when i was writing apollo, THIS what was i had in mind. people of all ethnicities, all shapes, all sizes, all different backgrounds, all gathered for one thing. it made me realize how lucky i was to have the means to create something as beautiful as that. (side note: when i went to the eras tour in glendale this last march, i felt this exact same way. cried my entire way through 'you need to calm down', especially when everyone screamed 'shade never made anybody less gay' louder than any other line.) it made me think of my childhood, all of my queer friends and i in choir together, singing our hesrts out. or when i participated in theater. we all got each other, and music was the way we did it.

i think now, more than anything, the queerness we have around all of us is something we need to hold on to, desperately. the laws being passed right now in this country terrify me as a queer adult. i think of the 14 year olds in those states, the baby gays who are experimenting in college, the closeted trans kids who are going to be and have already been killed by this. i feel ashamed of the world we are creating. 

that connection music gives us is a more important outlet than i think a lot of us realize. that's what apollo is. a celebration of how we are human. i didn't even realize the majority of people i was describing in this envisioned party were queer people, of all backgrounds, of all versions of queerness, and of all levels of acceptance. this song for me is now about a celebration of it. of drag queens, of the word gay, of pride. 

and of course i had to name it apollo. i did a lot of research during the initial writing session and tried to incorporate as much of his legend in as possible. the god of music was also bisexual :-). 

a fan asked me once if i was going to write any more songs on greek mythology. i was like "omg i should" and hadn't even connected the dots that i had written two songs for the upcoming ep that were based on greek mythology. one didn't make the cut, but apollo was too important to me and i had to keep it. i'm glad i did.

APOLLO

info@lemonademanagement.com
songwriter + artist

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