Grammy-nominated songwriter Sarah Aarons hasn’t lost one bit of her Aussie larrikin sense of humour since relocating to LA to become a hitmaker.
The Melbourne songwriter behind global hits like ‘Stay’ for Alessia Cara and ‘The Middle’ for Zedd recently unleashed her track for Justin Timberlake and SZA, co-penned with Max Martin.
‘The Other Side’, the first single released from the Trolls World Tour soundtrack, received praise from The New York Times, USA Today, Vulture, Rolling Stone, Fader, and Entertainment Weekly, upon release.
WATCH: SZA, Justin Timberlake – ‘The Other Side’
But there’s a sneaky little Easter egg in ‘The Other Side’, an inside joke which means more to Sarah Aarons than it does to ten-time Grammy winner, four-time Emmy winner, and Academy Award nominee Justin Timberlake.
“‘The Other Side’, for me, is about depression,” Aarons tells Tone Deaf. “Which is so weird because it’s so ‘up’. In my head it’s really funny because it’s got this line, ‘back on your feet again‘,” she sings.
“I got my leg cut off and that’s really funny because that’s what it means to me, but it’s not that [meaning] for anyone else – well I hope it’s not,” she laughs.
Aarons had her right leg amputated in late 2018 due to severe rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition that causes pain and swelling of the joints.
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new leg who dis pic.twitter.com/woThgQbrba
— Sarah Aarons (@sarah_aarons) November 30, 2018
Sarah Aarons was speaking on the Winners Circle panel for the inaugural Global APRA Music Awards at The Grammy Museum in LA. Aarons was discussing songwriting alongside fellow award winners Georgi Kay, Joel Little and Mallrat (aka Grace Shaw).
Aarons said her Grammy-nominated co-write ‘Stay’ for Zedd and Alessia Cara is about a person that doesn’t know it’s about them.
“All of the songs I’ve had out with other people, even if I wrote it with them, have me in it; more than they probably know – which is kind of amazing,” she said.
When offering advice to fellow songwriters, Aaron said: “Don’t tell people your songs are about them. They like it too much.
“I’ve done it before. I had a song in Australia that came out on triple j and their friend heard it and knew it was about them because of what the lyrics were.”
Aarons had taken out the coveted Songwriter of the Year Global APRA Award the night before the panel, along with two 1,000,000,000 List trophies after she accumulated over one billion streams globally for her tracks ‘Stay’ and ‘The Middle’.
