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Content warning: The following story discusses themes of eating disorders.
You know a song is good when it starts to soundtrack fan edits. Burgeoning British singer-songwriter-producer Erin LeCount's “Silver Spoon” has been working its way around a subset of TikTok, capturing the dynamic between characters like Percy Jackson and Luke Castellan, Arcane's Jinx and Powder, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and Marianne and Connell from Normal People.
The haunting orchestral pop song tells the story of two people in a relationship with vastly different upbringings: one had ample love and familial support, the other learned only resentment and neglect. The conflict is in what we do with how we were raised, for better or for worse. One of the many cutting lines goes, “We're the product of love that we do not receive/I'll corrupt every branch of this family tree.” You can see why it's perfect for the fan edits.
22-year-old LeCount, who hails from Essex, is riding the success of “Silver Spoon” into a new EP I AM DIGITAL, I AM DIVINE, out April 23. The music and aesthetic is a bit Ethel Cain meets Florence and the Machine — LeCount plays with gothic images from Christianity and classical art, overlaying sharp lyricism with her soaring vocals. She's intentional about building out the world her songs inhabit.
Below, Erin LeCount talks to Teen Vogue in her first U.S. interview about the making of “Silver Spoon,” her new song “Marble Arch,” and why she's drawn to religion and the body as metaphor.
Erin LeCount: It could not be more different. I think it's the first time that I've been aware that there are people actively engaging and listening, which is really lovely. Last time felt a lot more insular. It's a great feeling. That's what you want, is for people to engage, and for stuff to resonate, and it's all happened quite naturally, so it feels good. It feels much more exposed.
EL: The Normal People one killed me off slightly. It's so lovely. I was on Tumblr very much when I was younger, and that's how I found new music, fandoms and edits and stuff, or songs in TV shows. It is really nice that that still happens. I know that probably most people found the song through, not me, but of edits of stuff, and I love that. It's how I found loads of my favorite music.
TikTok content
TikTok content
EL: Hopefully the good side. There were depths of that website, but I don't know, I feel like I'm still using social media slightly in that headspace of curation. I want to go back to Tumblr. I haven't used it in forever, but I feel like with the tech oligarchy happening, everyone get back to Tumblr ASAP.
EL: It's funny, because the DIY stuff is more out of necessity. I do a lot of it myself because that's practical for me at the moment, and I'm also just a little bit of a control freak. But I think what was cool about that era, and the Lana stuff and everything, was it made it cool and acceptable. I think if I was just filming on my laptop, I'd be like, "Does this look shit?" But it's like, no, actually someone else doing that was cool then, and it's still cool to me now. It's stood the test of the past 10 years, so I feel like it's clearly to my taste, and it makes sense. But yeah, I love that stuff. “Video Games.” The era of Lana and The Weeknd interacting on Tumblr and reblogging each other's shit.
EL: I grew up in Essex, and up until last year, I was telling everyone that I was from London when I did music stuff, because I just wouldn't tell people I was from Essex. People only know it through Love Island. But I've realized the importance of the differentiation of, I'm not from London, I'm from Essex. I bleach my hair. [I wear] big fur coats, I'm definitely influenced by where I'm from.
But when I was younger, like primary school, I wanted to be an author, and I was always writing stories, and all my school reports were “away with the fairies." I was really loud, and then I was always putting on shows and stuff, and then I was incredibly quiet and incredibly just kept to myself, and I was very, very over sensitive. I loved writing, but I also loved computers and coding stuff, and my dad was really into that, and he encouraged that. My mom was more into dance, and she used to dance, and so it was definitely just a product of picking those things up from them. That's quite nice, because I feel like I'm fulfilling all my childhood hobbies in doing what I'm doing now, and I don't know, I get to do the dancing and produce a track, and that scratches all these different itches.
EL: Good songs?
EL: Good songs, a couple years ago, maybe. It feels mean saying bad songs, because I was really young. I can't remember not having some kind of writing element of my life, which is quite sweet. I lied a lot, just not intentionally. I just couldn't distinguish the two. I was always keeping diaries and stuff, but my diaries weren't really diaries, they were a bunch of made-up shit. It's like, “That didn't happen.” The lines were quite blurred.
EL: Oh my goodness. If I checked my photos app right now, I could probably give the exact date, because I wrote most of it the same day that I shared the first video of it. I wrote it in the afternoon, and then posted a snippet of it that evening, and I hadn't even finished writing it. And I never, ever do that. I usually keep things forever and ever, and I'm obsessive with working on them for ages, but I just did it, and then it was taken out of my hands, which, you just post things, because it doesn't matter, no one's seeing it.
EL: And yeah, my dad came in in the evening, and he was like, "I just keep getting recommended the same video over and over again." I was like, “That's weird.” So people did hear it, and then it was out of my hands, and I had to finish the song the next day.
EL: Do you know what is nice? We've had open conversations about it, and they are actually really cool, and respect the way that I share things, and the music I make. It's all quite... I'm sure, not even “Silver Spoon” specifically, but other songs and stuff I write about, they probably have to piece together what I'm sharing. They know the reality behind stuff, but they understand that this is what I do, and this is how I process things, and I have that output, and they're supportive of it. I am very grateful for that understanding, because I get asked the question a lot of what they think of it. And honestly, they both really love the song. It's one of their favorites. We've had really good conversations about that song, about other songs that I've written, that feel incredibly personal to us and our relationships. But I'm very lucky in that sense.
EL: It's so lovely, because I also wrote it from both perspectives. I wrote it when I was thinking about multiple different conversations that I've had with friends, and ex-partners, and things in their childhood that they did and didn't have, and things that I did or didn't have. The song was the conflict of that, and the imbalances of that, whether it's like you were financially better off, you were emotionally better off. It's a combination of everyone I know, and how everyone was brought up, and how they are a product of that, and we're all just trying to level out.
I think it is lovely seeing those comments, because there's not a right or wrong in the situation. It's not a self-pity song. It can be, but it also doesn't have to be, which is really nice. I think it's really nice to hear that perspective, and people commenting that they're listening on their partner's behalf, and trying to understand their partner's perspective. I think that's a really beautiful relationship to have.
EL: Honestly, not at all. My family aren't religious. I don't really have a specific relationship to religion, but I think I have a relationship with God in different forms, if that makes any sense whatsoever. I'm fascinated by it. I don't follow or class myself as a specific religion, and I always try and be respectful because I have just so many questions about it. I think it just is such a reoccurring theme in everything I write, that I'm so drawn to it, even if I don't quite understand why.
As much as it's beautiful and it's aesthetically pleasing, and the cross on the wall and everything, it's never performative. I think it really is from this place of, I'm obsessed with the idea of something bigger than me in whatever form it is. I love tarot, I love divination, and I'm just across the board interested in spirituality and religion, and the purpose that serves, especially in today's world as we get more and more secular as well, and the parallels of people singing hymns at a church, versus when you have that feeling of insane connection at a gig, or a concert, or a live music venue. I'm working out in real time, but it's just really important in everything I do, I think.
EL: I think I always accidentally end up writing about it, even when perhaps I don't mean to. So, it's intentional in a backwards way, I guess, because it's obviously a theme I go into quite a lot over and over again, but that's because it's a theme in my life. And yeah, it can be a tricky one to articulate in a way that isn't too on the nose or that isn't glamorizing anything. Sometimes I do read stuff back, and I wonder how it can be perceived. But my role is to say that, and it's other people's place to perceive that however it is, and perceive it however it is for them. But I can imagine it will continue to come up in things I write forever, because it's like the religion question, it's an ongoing theme and relationship in my life that I'll always be navigating, so the music will always be navigating, I guess.
EL: Yeah, yeah, completely, completely, completely. And it's never... I think there's an appropriate and tasteful way to write about things, and share experiences and perspectives on stuff.
EL: You're the first person, I think, that's directly picked up on that. “Marble Arch” is a layered one.
EL: Oh God, no. Absolutely. It's the opposite. I used to think that my writing and making music was so intrinsically linked and proportionate to how sad I was, or the experiences of my own life being super hard. I felt like I needed that to be the case, but I felt like I needed difficult experiences and times in my life to make good art, and almost like you have to suffer to make good stuff. But I've learned the importance of if I want to do this, and I want to do this well, and play shows, and be able to think straight when I'm making music... You can make art and be a happy, healthy, functioning person, and it actually serves it better.
EL: God, it was the hardest song I've ever made. It was so difficult, and it went through so many different life stages. I've never had such a strong idea of what I wanted a song to feel like, instantly. And it probably took me a year to be able to execute that; I didn't feel equipped enough, as a producer, to execute what I wanted to do. So, yeah, it's the biggest labor of love, I'd say. The fact that I kept going back to it blows my mind. I'm glad I did, because it's my favorite thing that I've made, but it did not come naturally. I'm someone who likes the instant flow of making something, and being like, "This is it," like it just fell from the sky. This most definitely didn't. It came to me in chapters over the course of quite a long time.
If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder, the NEDA helpline is here to help at 1-800-931-2237. NEDA's helpline volunteers offer support and basic information, locate treatment options in your area, and can help you find answers to any questions you may have.
