After charging out of the gate as a fiery indie rocker, Hannah Georgas has spent the past decade and a half digging deeper into subtlety, refining her craft into a quiet sound that's less flashy but more nuanced and emotionally open. Where she used to yelp and shout, she now sings with whisper-quiet delicacy, offering open-hearted reflections on family, friendships and her own interior world.
Her evolution continues on I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care, an album that explores soft acoustic balladry, smouldering indie rock and shimmering new wave pop, with Georgas's tender vocals and unflinchingly heart-on-sleeve lyrics providing the through line.
To mark the release of I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care, we asked Georgas to rank the five best songs from her catalogue. She picked some highlights from across her six albums, plus a song from her very first EP. She hastened to add that these five picks aren't necessarily her definitive all-time favourites, but rather the ones that she's been connecting with lately.
"I definitely go through phases with what feels exciting and fresh," she tells Exclaim! "I'll be more into a song of mine because it's brand new, or I may be really digging how a particular song is feeling when I play it live. I chose these songs because they might give you a sense of my story, and they're songs I've been appreciating lately.
5. "That Emotion"
All That Emotion (2020)
I think if you're hearing my music for the first time, this is a nice way to be introduced. Lyrically, it brings up feelings that come up often in my writing. Music has been a way for me to articulate complex feelings that are hard to communicate, and this song kinda digs deeper into all of that. It's the title track off my last album I put out in 2020 that Aaron Dessner produced. When I initially emailed the original demo to Aaron, I remembered feeling eager to share it because it felt like I stumbled upon something special. He wrote within a few minutes saying how much he loved the demo, and that got me pumped.
When it comes to production, sometimes a song can really dictate how the instrumentation will go, and sometimes it's more of a journey to get there. This one just felt natural and easy from its beginning stages. I never got to fully tour the songs on that album because of the pandemic, but I played it recently at a show in Brighton and people were singing along, and that felt really nice. I started to get a bit teary.
4. "Enemies"
Hannah Georgas (2012)
This song brings back some vivid memories of living in my tiny apartment in Vancouver, demoing and working on my second album. The lyric "sea full of sharks" was something I just started repeating over and over in my head, and then it kinda all flowed out of me from there. It's a song about being in the music industry and the challenges that I've faced behind the scenes. It's not fun when someone on your team doesn't really have your best interest at heart. As artists, we don't often talk about these things. Or at least, I've found it challenging to talk about, and so writing about it was definitely a good release.
3. "The National"
The Beat Stuff (2008)
I wrote this song very early in my career, and it's off the first EP I released back in 2009. It was inspired by a dream I had running into an ex at a National concert. In my dream, we locked eyes from across the room and all of the feelings rushed back. It's about how time heals heartache, and the idea that you know later down the road those intense feelings you are experiencing will fade away.
Years later — not a dream — I had the opportunity to work on an album with Aaron Dessner, and he was so kind to invite me out to sing back-up on a bunch of National dates. I got to get to know all of them, and it was such an incredible experience. My 20-year-old self would be pretty amazed to hear that all of that would happen. It's nice to look back over that span of time and see that progression.
2. "City"
For Evelyn (2016)
I chose this song because people who know my music might not know this one. I recently played it on my piano at home, and it took me back to that feeling I felt when I initially wrote it. It was one of those songs that poured out of me. I left my hometown (Newmarket, ON) at the age of 18, moved out to the West Coast of Canada and lived there for almost 15 years. It's another place I call home. I wrote this song around the time that I decided to move back to Ontario from Vancouver. Things were shifting, I was going through a bad breakup, and had been going back and forth to Toronto so much, I felt this pull to move. I wanted to describe what it feels like when we know something is coming to an end before it's ended. I thought the lyric "This city is over me" was interesting, because I felt misplaced in more ways than one, and also had this feeling of, "If I leave, things will just keep going and I won't be missed."
1. "Not the Name You Say"
I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care (2023)
This song feels really exciting to me at this current moment! It speaks to how I've been feeling lately, and I had a fun time making it. It's off my new album. I've shared the album with a few close buds, and this song is definitely one that people say is a highlight.
I know all songs are supposed to be short these days, but this song felt like it needed to play out and be what it needed to be. I get lost in the song in a good way, which feels nice, and that's exactly the feeling I wanted it to have. One of my favourite Deerhunter songs called "Desire Lines" does that, and it's just a rad choice that inspired me.
The song is about letting go of the feeling of not being good enough. I have felt that way throughout my life, and this one throws that all out the window. This is about creating your own lane for yourself and not giving a shit what anyone thinks.
Her evolution continues on I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care, an album that explores soft acoustic balladry, smouldering indie rock and shimmering new wave pop, with Georgas's tender vocals and unflinchingly heart-on-sleeve lyrics providing the through line.
To mark the release of I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care, we asked Georgas to rank the five best songs from her catalogue. She picked some highlights from across her six albums, plus a song from her very first EP. She hastened to add that these five picks aren't necessarily her definitive all-time favourites, but rather the ones that she's been connecting with lately.
"I definitely go through phases with what feels exciting and fresh," she tells Exclaim! "I'll be more into a song of mine because it's brand new, or I may be really digging how a particular song is feeling when I play it live. I chose these songs because they might give you a sense of my story, and they're songs I've been appreciating lately.
5. "That Emotion"
All That Emotion (2020)
I think if you're hearing my music for the first time, this is a nice way to be introduced. Lyrically, it brings up feelings that come up often in my writing. Music has been a way for me to articulate complex feelings that are hard to communicate, and this song kinda digs deeper into all of that. It's the title track off my last album I put out in 2020 that Aaron Dessner produced. When I initially emailed the original demo to Aaron, I remembered feeling eager to share it because it felt like I stumbled upon something special. He wrote within a few minutes saying how much he loved the demo, and that got me pumped.
When it comes to production, sometimes a song can really dictate how the instrumentation will go, and sometimes it's more of a journey to get there. This one just felt natural and easy from its beginning stages. I never got to fully tour the songs on that album because of the pandemic, but I played it recently at a show in Brighton and people were singing along, and that felt really nice. I started to get a bit teary.
4. "Enemies"
Hannah Georgas (2012)
This song brings back some vivid memories of living in my tiny apartment in Vancouver, demoing and working on my second album. The lyric "sea full of sharks" was something I just started repeating over and over in my head, and then it kinda all flowed out of me from there. It's a song about being in the music industry and the challenges that I've faced behind the scenes. It's not fun when someone on your team doesn't really have your best interest at heart. As artists, we don't often talk about these things. Or at least, I've found it challenging to talk about, and so writing about it was definitely a good release.
3. "The National"
The Beat Stuff (2008)
I wrote this song very early in my career, and it's off the first EP I released back in 2009. It was inspired by a dream I had running into an ex at a National concert. In my dream, we locked eyes from across the room and all of the feelings rushed back. It's about how time heals heartache, and the idea that you know later down the road those intense feelings you are experiencing will fade away.
Years later — not a dream — I had the opportunity to work on an album with Aaron Dessner, and he was so kind to invite me out to sing back-up on a bunch of National dates. I got to get to know all of them, and it was such an incredible experience. My 20-year-old self would be pretty amazed to hear that all of that would happen. It's nice to look back over that span of time and see that progression.
2. "City"
For Evelyn (2016)
I chose this song because people who know my music might not know this one. I recently played it on my piano at home, and it took me back to that feeling I felt when I initially wrote it. It was one of those songs that poured out of me. I left my hometown (Newmarket, ON) at the age of 18, moved out to the West Coast of Canada and lived there for almost 15 years. It's another place I call home. I wrote this song around the time that I decided to move back to Ontario from Vancouver. Things were shifting, I was going through a bad breakup, and had been going back and forth to Toronto so much, I felt this pull to move. I wanted to describe what it feels like when we know something is coming to an end before it's ended. I thought the lyric "This city is over me" was interesting, because I felt misplaced in more ways than one, and also had this feeling of, "If I leave, things will just keep going and I won't be missed."
1. "Not the Name You Say"
I'd Be Lying If I Said I Didn't Care (2023)
This song feels really exciting to me at this current moment! It speaks to how I've been feeling lately, and I had a fun time making it. It's off my new album. I've shared the album with a few close buds, and this song is definitely one that people say is a highlight.
I know all songs are supposed to be short these days, but this song felt like it needed to play out and be what it needed to be. I get lost in the song in a good way, which feels nice, and that's exactly the feeling I wanted it to have. One of my favourite Deerhunter songs called "Desire Lines" does that, and it's just a rad choice that inspired me.
The song is about letting go of the feeling of not being good enough. I have felt that way throughout my life, and this one throws that all out the window. This is about creating your own lane for yourself and not giving a shit what anyone thinks.