Mother Earth

Album: The Altar (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • Banks wrote this song when she was coming out of a depression. She explained to Time:

    "I've struggled with depression since I was younger. It hits me every few years or so. It's not like I know it's coming - sometimes I think it's coming right before I give birth to something big. This last time, I hadn't gone through it in awhile, and it hit me super hard, and I was struggling to get out of it.

    'Mother Earth' came from feeling sickened by the way society, the world, and this business make women feel. Make me feel, sometimes. Just powerless. Fractured up body parts. I gave that song to myself because I needed that song. It's not a song s---ting on anything - it's a song of healing and wanting. Follow me, and when you fall, follow me. Coming together. Me being the healer, almost. I wanted to give my energy and hold the hand of another woman who has felt how I feel."
  • The song finds Banks commenting on societal pressure for women to look or be a certain way. She explained to Jam! Music:

    "It's like a system set up to feel like you have to be a droid or something. That perfectionism, or whatever people think that is, takes all the soul out of a human being and it's so boring. And trying to be less interesting than you are is sad."

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