Sophia Michaels
Upsahl doesn’t need to add anyone on Co-Star so they see her astrological traits, she’ll just be able to hand them her new EP. On Friday, the singer released her EP Sagittarius, a five-track project that encapsulates “every part of myself: the good and the bad.”
“If somebody asked me to explain myself at my core as a human being, I would tell them to listen to Sagittarius,” she tells Rolling Stone. “This is the first time in my life that I dove fully into myself throughout the writing process, and the songs definitely reflect that self-discovery. Each song represents a different part of me that makes me who I am.”
If the project was her Tarot card reader, this is what they would say: “I crave change, I live for intensity, I’m extremely passionate (sometimes to a fault), I exert power in as many aspects of my life as I can, and I’m unbothered as fuck,” Upsahl says.
The project follows her debut LP Lady Jesus, which she released last year, and she says was really about “very specific” instances in her life and the issues she was facing at the time. This time, there was no situations: “I just had myself,” she says. “Finding a healthy level of selfishness for this EP, and learning to embrace the self-discovery aspect of songwriting is what made this process so freeing.”
As she wraps the year and celebrates her 24th birthday, Upsahl says she’s excited for the honest-filled future that’s in store for her in 2023. “I genuinely feel like I found the happiest version of myself this year, so I can’t wait to build off of that in the next year,” she says.
Rolling Stone asked Upsahl to break down each song off her new EP.
Kickflip
Upsahl: The day I wrote “Kickflip,” I was nearing the end of the writing process for the EP, and I realized that I had covered so many pieces of myself but was missing the part of me that is unbothered as fuck. Kickflip pinpoints that part of the night where you are feeling on top of the world. You feel hot, you want to stir the pot up a bit, you want to entertain, be entertained, be spontaneous, and you feel like nothing in the world can get you out of that mood. I don’t even know how to do a “kickflip,” but that’s the unbothered energy I wanted to harness!
Into My Body
Being such an intense person, I feel all of my feelings to the extreme, so when I started to feel out of my body and not like myself, I felt it HARD. I could have written a sad song about dissociating and called it a day, but I think the day I wrote it, I needed something empowering to pull me out of that space. The combination of sad and sexy and vulnerable and fun that we put into the song felt the most “me” that day, and that intense energy is a big part of who I am.
Skin Crawl
“Skin Crawl” is about taking your power back. It’s about when you get caught up in the stress of life and realize that sometimes it’s okay to want to feel nothing or, in this case, want to just feel without overthinking. I want people to let go of that mundane feeling and find power in its simplest form. Our feelings. It’s also about rolling and that magnetic energy you get, so take what you will from that 🙂
Antsy
I wrote Antsy during a time in my life when I was quite the shitshow – which is most of the time 😉 I remember having this ongoing list in my head of things about my life that I wanted to change. Things about myself, my career, my personal life, my relationships, etc. All of these things were completely within my control, and I was craving change in my life so badly. But sometimes, those lists that we all have get so overwhelming that it’s easier to just ignore the whole thing and stay antsy…
Toast
I realized how passionate I am while writing “Toast.” Being such a fiery person, it’s second nature to dive into things head first, and even when I try not to, that’s what my heart and mind always do. Toast is me leaning into that passion and accepting it. Sometimes when things are coming to an end, whether it’s relationships or periods of our lives, we prolong the inevitable and avoid that ending at all costs in order to protect our feelings. Writing this song felt very reflective and almost empowering in a way.
