Couch Potatoes// Living Room Songs

—by jack

It was an unseasonably warm night in February when I made the arduous trek up to the Chicago burbs to do my CP//LRS session with NINA FERRARO. See, Nina lives with her parents due to the fact that she’s a fifteen-year-old high school student. But I was there doing the shoot because she’s also a crazy talented high school student. 

From what I gather, Nina has been writing songs, playing (at least) the guitar and ukelele, and generally doing the prodigy thing since she was a little kid. You can tell— in her boldness (personal boldness and also lyrical boldness, the girl doesn’t hold a whole lot of punches in her songwriting), and in the quality of her songs. 

 When I showed up at her brick house tucked between a whole smattering of like-styled buildings, I met Nina’s gracious mother. She’d ordered me a pizza (and canolis, and cheesy bread, man I miss Moms) and insisted rather forcefully that I eat. Over greasy fast food, I got to chat a bit with Nina and her band mate, the kind of hipsterish twenty-something you can see playing a mean guitar in the video. The conversation was good, the food wasn’t bad at all, and I was impressed by Nina’s confidence, energy, and inquisitiveness.

We shot the session in  her bedroom. Her walls had their fair share of cute male singer-songwriters hanging in poster form (well, that’s not totally fair, most prominent by my memory was one of Elliot Smith, who less than being a heart throb, just straight killed himself a number of years back). She had the wall-to-wall carpeting and the slanted ceilings from being placed underneath a roof. It was, emphatically, a high school girl’s bedroom. But when she sat down and started playing, I forgot all that.

I was just doing a shoot with a supremely talented musician. Watch out for Nina, I figure she’s coming. And I hope you enjoy the song as much as I did.