Hanna Roos (Hanna Lönnroos) is a Stockholm-based artist and songwriter, originally from Finland, who has studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, one of several artists from that august institute to have appeared in these pages.
Inspired by 1970s folk rock and singer-songwriters, ‘The Tide’ is a hopeful song about finding balance between dreams and challenges.
And while she sees the song as being about “staying true to your goals and ambition”, she invites you to interpret the lyrics as you hear them, in the knowledge that just about everyone has to find that balance at some time or other.
Actually, you don’t need to be told of that 1970s influence. It oozes out of the song as if Joni Mitchell had just stepped out of a big yellow taxi, Carole King had found a friend or Joan Baez had spent the night driving Old Dixie down.
Both ‘The Tide’ and her vocal rendition of it exude the style and class that regrettably we don’t hear as much of these days.
Now here’s a thing. I didn’t know the word for this but I checked it on AI and discovered that ‘prosody’ is the term for how the construction, structure, or musical elements of a song directly reflect or suggest its lyrical meaning.
Because that is exactly what she has done here; the sudden, sharp changes of pace, tempo and volume being highly suggestive of how a flood tide can start off quite gently before it dramatically changes into a surge, punctuated by occasional moments of calm.
So lie back, think of England, and let ‘The Tide’ trap you.
(Continues after the Spotify link).
Hanna Roos’ debut EP is to be released in early summer 2026.
Find her on:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannalonnroos
