Premiere: LEO’s Raw “Feels Like Home” Offers Love & Support Amidst Australia’s Bushfire Crisis

A heartwrenchingly delicate acoustic song full of life, “Feels Like Home” finds Australian singer/songwriter LEO extending a loving hand to victims of the bushfires and all those in their time of need.

Stream: “Feels Like Home” – LEO

I wanted to write a song that said we’ll be there when the fire’s gone out.

Australian artist LEO’s latest single is as fragile as a leaf in the breeze: Light and frail, at once a testament to both life and death, but hopeful nevertheless. A singer/songwriter living, traveling, and recording in her Mercedes Sprinter van, LEO knows better than most what it’s like to be face to face with destruction, while needing to soldier on: She’s seen devastation up close and personally, having been directly affected by the Australian bushfires that have (at last count) taken at least 33 human lives, killed an estimated one billion animals, and destroyed over 3,000 homes since September 2019.

A heartwrenchingly delicate acoustic song full of life, “Feels Like Home” finds LEO extending a loving hand to those in their time of need. It’s a simple, solemn, bittersweet reminder that life isn’t always going to go our way, but also that time never stops moving forward: It’s all we can do to pick ourselves up (with a little help from our friends), and keep on living.

Roads are closed
Too late to leave town
I can’t tell you what it’s like
To watch it all burn down

Family and friends
Somebody you know
They’ve lost everything
Nowhere to go

Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “Feels Like Home,” LEO’s first single of 2020, produced by Lindsay Martin. The artist moniker for Wollongong-born, New South Wales-based Lucy Mills, LEO first debuted her acoustic folk songs in 2015. A fresh voice in a crowded scene, her music is sweet and relatable, with messages that hit hard. “Feels Like Home” finds her returning not just with music, but with a sense of urgency and meaningful action in the moment: 50% of all sales for “Feels Like Home” will be donated to the Support Act bushfire relief fund, an Australian charity providing support for artists, crew and music workers affected by the Australian bushfire crisis.

I won’t let you walk on alone
Wrap my arms around you till it feels
Like home
I won’t let you walk on alone
Wrap my arms around you till it feels
Feels like home

“It’s a suffocating feeling when there’s a layer of smoke sitting on your shoulders, and when you look up for perspective you can’t see the sky. You see orange, not endless blue or clouds You look at the map and fires are dotted around your home, your family and friends, the country you live in. There’s outrage and debate over our government’s actions, or lack of, so there’s a sense of division rather than coming together in crisis,” LEO tells Atwood Magazine. “I wanted to write a song that was raw like I was feeling, like friends had said they were feeling. I wanted to write a simple, authentic song that didn’t shy away from the awful situation but still offered a sense of hope and comfort; a message that said we’ll move forward and we’ll move forward together. I’ve seen that when something traumatic happens there’s a flood of good will and open arms, for a while, then there’s nothing. Not nothing on purpose, just the natural flow of things where routines take over once again. I wanted to write a song that said we’ll be there when the fire’s gone out.”

She continues, “As a freelance musician I’ve missed out on work due to hazardous smoke, road closures and threatening fires; when I don’t work I don’t get paid. I live and travel in a van so I’m lucky in the sense that I can take my home away from dangerous areas and I don’t have rent to pay each week. I know there are lots of others in the industry who have suffered in some way through the bushfire crisis so I felt I should contribute something more than a song. Support Act is Australia’s only charity delivering crisis relief services to musicians, crew and other music workers. I’ll be donating 50% of sales of ‘Feels Like Home’ to Support Act’s bushfire relief fund. I hope that word will spread and we can raise a good bit of money to help out our fellow creatives.”

Learn More about Support Act here

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Wind is changin’
So am I
I feel afraid
For everything alive
Got to keep goin’
I know you wanna just stop
But right now
Right now is all we’ve got

Modest, humble finger-picked strokes support LEO’s voice as she commits to being there – if not in body, then in mind and spirit. Her words ache with knowing pain, her unassuming accompaniment capturing just how easy it is to do the bare minimum and help your fellow human. “I won’t let you walk on alone,” LEO sings. “Wrap my arms around you ’til it feels like home.”,

Of course, LEO’s doing so much more than the bare minimum with her music: Hopefully, she’s creating a blanket to drape over ourselves and others, a means of commitment that goes deeper than donations or “thoughts and prayers.” If you’re reading this and have the time to spare, listen to LEO’s new song. If you’re reading this and have $5 to spare, consider donating what you can to Support Act. They need your help now, more than ever – and we, as a world community, cannot forget or turn a blind eye to what millions of our Australian neighbors are dealing with on a daily basis.

Stream “Feels Like Home” exclusively on Atwood Magazine!

Stream: “Feels Like Home” – LEO

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