Songwriter finds outlet in singles

In March 2020, when COVID19 began dominating the headlines and California instituted its first shelterinplace orders, college student Emma Gerson felt frozen in time. Her school, UC Berkeley, had shut down, her classes had gone online, and the aspiring songwriter was suddenly faced with unexpected time alone. What would she do with all these empty months?

According to some on social media, new artists were supposed to squeeze the pandemic for maximal productivity. “Just a reminder that when Shakespeare was quarantined because of the plague, he wrote ‘King Lear,’” chirped a viral tweet in March 2020. Unsurprisingly, that tweet was ridiculed across the internet: Contemporary artists have 21st century bills to pay, or school and children, and also better distractions, such as

Netflix and Tik

Tok.

Gerson wasn’t ready to write her “King Lear” — at least, not immediately. Instead, she found herself repeatedly reading Virginia Woolf ’s “To the Lighthouse” and visiting San Francisco parks.

“I really wanted to create art that reflected the world as I saw it — crumbling, people panicking, people dying — and maybe try to create a little corner of peace,” Gerson said. “I did not have enough mindspace to commit to making art that was trying to say something. I became more comfortable with accepting whatever came out of me.”

Her process of slowing down, observing and consuming soon led to moments of furious songwriting. She soon released a string of singles, including “Let Me Love You” and “Throne,” all

genrebending R&B pop songs about everything from love to existing and resisting in patriarchal spaces. As an upandcoming indie artist, Gerson misses the thrill of inperson performances, but she’s building an audience in digital spaces like Instagram and TikTok, the latter of which became the de facto guilty pleasure for many people in lockdown.

Tovah Popilsky Singersongwriter Emma Gerson