Bella Frances has spent the majority of her life living in fear. She was born with severe anaphylaxis, which meant she was in and out of the hospital for her entire childhood. This resulted in many around her pushing the narrative that she would never be able to live a ‘normal’ life of adventure due to her allergies.
Now in her twenties, the Orillia-based country artist has decided to challenge that narrative.
“I’ve always had this really strong desire to go out on my own and travel, but I always thought that that wasn’t in the cards for me,” Frances said. “At some point I just got sick of it and I booked myself a train ticket.”
That ticket was to Montreal, where Frances attended the Folk Alliance International conference. While a six hour train ride doesn’t seem like a big deal to many, for Frances it helped her discover a part of herself that she didn’t even know existed.
“It really challenged my entire belief system about who I was. I ended up performing twice that weekend at the conference, which wasn’t even planned.”
It was during this weekend trip that Frances began writing her latest song, fittingly titled ‘You Were Wrong About Me.’ She said that the title is for those who constructed the narrative about her fragility, but also how she saw herself.
“It came out of that whole experience [of traveling on my own], which was a huge revelation for me that I am more capable than I previously thought.
Appreciating The Little Things
Growing up with severe allergies put Frances in a unique position. While most kids her age were out playing games or travelling around, Frances was becoming more and more aware of her mortality.
“It’s not a normal thing to be in contact with when you’re five or six,” Frances said. “But because of having that awareness of death at such a young age, I’ve also always had this very conscious desire to be fully alive in my life.”
Frances said that much of her songwriting stems from that desire to live life to the fullest. She said that her songwriting tends to focus in on really tiny details that most people would just miss.
“My favourite thing to do is to go back in time and find a moment and blow it up. I have this song called ‘Letterman Jacket’ and in it there’s a line that says ‘You linger with the grocery store freezer door open. Go out of your way to ask me how it’s going’. It’s just those little moments that affected me, and honing in on that sense of aliveness.”
Frances said that being able to focus in on these little, specific moments in this current age of AI is really interesting. She said that having the ability to express something that you can feel from an actual perspective rather than regurgitated information is something that is really special.
“That was something that I really wanted to explore on this album. I’ve been working with the amazing Nixon Boyd over the last year on this EP. I really wanted to look at this whole craft of songwriting, that is, to me, what could be summed up as celebrating our aliveness.”
From Childhood Idol To Musical Influence
Frances said that much of her recent songwriting has been influenced by The Chicks. But before them, there was a different influence that really kickstarted Frances’ love for songwriting.
“My first favourite artist was Taylor Swift when I was around 6 years old,” Frances said. “I think I heard ‘Love Story’ and I was like ‘What is this?’. At the time I was already starting to write poetry, and I loved dancing and performing, so when I came across Taylor I was like ‘Oh my god you can combine those things?’.
It was in that moment that it clicked for Frances that she could become a performing poet/singer if she wanted to. At the age of 12 she began writing songs of her own, and hasn’t stopped since.
Frances said from that moment on, she relentlessly listened to Taylor Swift’s music, especially her country writing. What she didn’t know was where Swift had gotten her influence: The Chicks.
“I had never really listened to The Chicks growing up, you know they weren’t my childhood influence. But then I read that in an interview Taylor had talked about being influenced by The Chicks so I started listening to them.”
Frances said that she fell in love with their music. She said being able to listen to this “freedom seeking spunky trio of women” was really inspirational.
“The thing I really love about The Chicks is that they feel like freedom. As a songwriter, when I sit down with my guitar that’s what I’m searching for and I find it in music and self expression. I wanted to work that into this song. I want it to feel like freedom when you listen to it, and I hope it feels like liberation because that’s what it gave me.”
You can stream ‘You Were Wrong About Me’ here.
