A Psalm For Emily Salvi

On regrets, a new album and a UK tour

Hello Dear Reader

How many years have we been doing this together now? Let me tell you. It is just over 23 years to the day that I released my first album Dear Frustrated Superstar into the wild.

Around the same time, some of you found each other on Yahoo! and created a message board that called itself the Cult of Nerina. I stumbled upon it one day and couldn’t believe there were actual humans out there who cared if I ever made another album again, but you did. I remember the day I posted ‘Idaho’ on my MySpace page, and the little group exploded into happiness because there was new music, and better still, it was good. I decided to keep going, if not just for myself, but for this select crew who actually gave a damn.

Over the years, the select crew has grown and grown, finding members along the way, all around the world, and because of strange coincidences or chances taken on someone they had never heard of before. I’ve been fortunate to meet many of you in person, and watch some of you come of age, even get married and have families of your own. Some of you I have sadly had to say goodbye to. But this club, or cult or whatever you want to call it, is a family of sorts, and over time you have sent me many beautiful messages about your own lives; about your own hopes and dreams and sorrows. I may have shared music with you, but you have shared much more and I do not take these glimpses into your own lives lightly.

At the very beginning of this year, I received an email from a woman with whom I have shared a correspondence in the last few years. Without betraying her confidence, what I can say is that we have always talked about the big stuff. Emily Salvi - not her real name - knows what it is to live in this world when so often it feels like living is to wage war on oneself. And on a gloomy January morning, she wrote to me, urging me to consider the poetry of psalms; their structure and their narrative of small humans swallowed by the enormity of existence but needing a reason to sing. How could she know - on that day of all days, when I was questioning everything - exactly the right thing to say, but she did.

Just before I released I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, a friend of mine died very suddenly much too young. It floored those of us who knew him. Shortly after this, my aunt died, then my sister, then my uncle who was also my Godfather and - just in case I was having second thoughts about 2022 being my annus horribilis - the year’s final flourish was to take another uncle before it was out. It’s funny now - actually, no it’s not funny - but I started to joke that no, I was not being investigated by the authorities but that I was going to start a TripAdvisor for funerals.

As the dust settled, and I looked ahead to a landmark birthday, I started to feel profoundly lucky to be alive. That every day was a bonus when nobody knows for certain how long we have here, and that life, as Kahlil Gibran once said, is always longing for itself. The sun still rose each morning, the birds still sang, the dog still needed walking and the laundry attending to and that far from humdrum, these were monumental gifts. It’s no accident that the present is called the present - here is another new day. How wonderful! How amazing we get another one!

On November 1st, it would have been my friend Chris’s 47th birthday. Since he died, not a day has gone by that I have not thought of him. What is weird is that when he was alive I did not think about him every day. He was just there - I didn’t expect him not to be.

One of my big regrets is that a few days before he died, he asked me to send him a copy of my last album before it was released, and I didn’t. Not because I didn’t want him to hear it, but because I didn’t want him to hear it and think it was rubbish. I’m sorry, Chris, and wherever you are, releasing the new album on your birthday is my way of making it up to you.

I shall be sharing more about the album with you in the coming weeks. To kick things off, today is the release of the first single, ‘Regrets’. The album is called A Psalm for Emily Salvi and will be released on November 1st 2024. I am nervous, because as we all know, it isn’t really the approval of strangers we seek, but of those who mean something to us.

You see, you are not strangers to me - and so it matters. It matters when you send me photos of your tattoos of my songs. It matters when you tell me things you can’t tell other people. It matters that you too are just trying to figure out life in whatever way you can and need connection with another human.

It mattered when Emily urged me to keep doing the thing I love. She is all of you, too.

Thank you.

With love as ever,

Nerina xxxx

‘Regrets’ - AVAILABLE ON STREAMING NOW

A Psalm for Emily Salvi  PRE-ORDER HERE

ALBUM PREVIEW

FEBRUARY 2025  Fires & Other Songs UK TOUR

PRE-SALE WEDNESDAY AUGUST 28 2024

GENERAL SALE FRIDAY AUGUST 30 2024