Country singer-songwriter Jamie McDell's third full-length album Extraordinary Girl (out on May 10) was recorded 8,000 miles away from her hometown of Auckland, New Zealand in Nashville, Tenn., where she recorded with alt-country legends Kasey Chambers and Bill Chambers and fellow powerhouse New Zealander Tami Neilson.
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The result of her long journey from home is a stunning, 12-song collection of raw confessionals, breezy anthems and plaintive storytelling rooted in the tradition of old school country and folk balladeers.
The album's title track is a tender message to a loved one in a relationship with someone making them feel small.
"You're hotter than the sun but he will treat you like you're colder than the rain...Your mind is full of wonder and he'll talk to you like you ain't seen the world," McDell sings. "And you're letting this plain ordinary man break extraordinary girl."
McDell says she was inspired to write the song as a message of care for a friend in a bad relationship.
"I had this friend I would catch up with only once or twice a year for dinner, and over the years we would have the same conversation about her partner. She would describe to me all these mentally and physically abusive situations he would put her in and I would try to give her the confidence to leave the relationship, though she never really heard me then," McDells tells Wide Open Country. "That's when writing a song like this seemed the most clear and caring way of explaining how I was seeing things and how I hoped she might see things too. She was one of those girls that truly had everything going for her; beautiful, intelligent, kind, the only thing keeping her from greatness was this man."
Listen to "Extraordinary Girl" below.
Extraordinary Girl was produced by Nash Chambers and recorded at House Of Blues, Studio D in Nashville, Tenn. For more information on Jamie McDell, visit her official website.
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