BABY COOL
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Interviewer/Writer: Aysha Swanson
Photos: Lisa Kelly
Last year, I found myself thinking a lot about how few songs are actually written about friendship. Not friendship as a passing lyric wedged between romantic heartbreak, but friendship as something central, sustaining, life-altering, and enduring. It’s strange when you think about it. Most people’s lives are shaped just as deeply by platonic relationships as romantic ones, yet music rarely gives those connections the same emotional weight.
Listening to “Sacred”, the new single by Grace Cuell AKA Baby Cool, that absence became impossible to ignore. The song reframes love away from romance entirely, lingering instead in the quiet intimacy of being known by another person over time. It doesn’t romanticise friendship so much as recognise its permanence: the people who remain while everything else shifts around you.
What struck me most speaking to Grace was how naturally those ideas flowed into every part of the conversation. “Sacred” was initially written for a friend going through a difficult time, but the song has since evolved alongside her own experience of pregnancy and motherhood, taking on new meanings around care, closeness, and shared existence. Throughout our interview, she returned repeatedly to the idea of grounding - friendship as an anchor, music as something communal, and songwriting as a way of making sense of being human even when nothing fully makes sense.
That same feeling runs through the sonic world of “Sacred”. Built from nylon-string guitar, orchestral swells, and shimmering harp arrangements, the track feels expansive without losing its intimacy. Even at its most dreamlike, there’s something deeply human sitting at the centre of it.
Ahead of the release of “Sacred”, we spoke with Baby Cool about friendship in music, motherhood in the arts, collaboration as creative philosophy, and finding moments of stillness inside what she describes as the “washing machine of existence.”
AYSHA: “Sacred” reframes love away from romance and toward friendship, what made you want to centre that kind of connection, especially in a musical landscape that so often prioritises romantic love?
BABY COOL: I just feel like my platonic relationships have always been like this big anchor in my life, like, um, almost and it’s kind of like a constant theme that’s carried me through. You know, many different romantic partners come and go, but like the friendships is what kind of remains constant.
And I think that, yeah, like you said, there’s just so much out there about romantic love and we celebrate it so much, but I feel like it’s almost, yeah, just as important, if not more important, to celebrate the platonic love as well.
It’s really interesting. I wrote this song for a friend who was kind of going through a rough time and couldn’t- I was trying to explain to her how much our connection gives me and how much her friendship has like given me. So yeah, originally it was written for that. And then since then it’s kind of like woven into a lot of my other friendships. And now that I have a daughter, it’s kind of woven its way into that too, which is nice.
AYSHA: Yeah, beautiful. You’ve spoken about how the song evolved alongside your experience of pregnancy, how did that shift your understanding of what “sacred” means?
BABY COOL: Absolutely. I feel like it’s probably the most, without wanting to sound too cliché, it’s like the most spiritual thing I’ve been through. Like experiencing pregnancy and birth is like a whole other plane of existence.
But just like carrying a being inside of you and the lyrics in the end part of the song, like “life moves softly when you and I are breathing in time,” that just took on a whole new meaning for me, which I get kind of emotional thinking about.
Yeah, I mean, I feel like there’s this part of motherhood and pregnancy that’s really hidden and behind closed doors. Maybe we celebrate it yearly on Mother’s Day, but I feel like in the arts, it’s not, I don’t know, women, we’re kind of hidden in that chapter of our lives in things like music or film. You don’t really see a lot of pregnant women or mothers. It’s kind of wild because it’s such a huge part of human existence.
So yeah, now that I’ve been through it, I want to make it a pretty core part of my work because it’s just such a core part of my life now. And my songs have kind of taken on new meanings now that I’ve entered this new chapter, which is cool.
AYSHA: Yeah, for sure, I can imagine. And that’s awesome that you also touch on not only friendship, but also motherhood, which both feel so underrepresented. There’s not much on female friendships either, it’s very romance-centric. So I love that you touch on both of those and that it’s taken on that extra meaning for you.
AYSHA: Across your work, you often explore how to “make sense of being human” through songwriting, did “Sacred” feel like a moment of grounding within that bigger, ongoing search?
BABY COOL: Definitely. Because I think a big part of the making sense of it is that it never really makes sense. And so “Sacred” is just kind of like a pause and trying to feel content just in the company of someone because, yeah, you’re both in this washing machine of existence and maybe that pause will just give you a little bit of reprieve for a second.
AYSHA: Yeah, for sure. I feel like that song has that quality to it as well. It’s like a moment of peace within the chaos.
AYSHA: I guess kind of going into that sonic world a bit more, musically, your music kind of blends psychedelia and folk and pop textures. So I was wondering how you approached writing the sonic world of “Sacred” to match its themes of intimacy and connection.
BABY COOL: Yeah, well, a lot of my songs I just write with my nylon string guitar and “Sacred” was written that way. But I had a vision for it being a bit more larger-than-life than just me with my guitar.
So yeah, I took it to my producer, Sam Joseph, and was just like, I gave him a really vague description. I was like, “I want it to be kind of orchestral and a bit dramatic, but also grounded at the same time.” And he sort of wove his magic. We worked on that together.
Lisa Kelly plays the harp in it too, which I feel like gives it this otherworldly quality.
AYSHA: So going into that side of community and collaboration, they’ve both been a big part of your work. I was wondering how friendship in your own life has directly shaped the sound or spirit of this track.
BABY COOL: Yeah. Well, I always make music with my friends, so the way I make the song is kind of relevant to the content of it.
And I think, yeah, I don’t know, to me, music is best when it’s shared. So I could just be playing my nylon string by myself, but it’s so much funner to have a seven-piece band, even though it’s not financially viable in any way.
Last year I toured with the whole crew and it’s just so nice up there playing the songs with my best friends. And yeah, it just sounds way better too.
AYSHA: I love that there’s that extra layer, the song’s about friendship and it was made with friendship, so that’s awesome. You’ve balanced this project with your work in Nice Biscuit as well, and I was wondering how you differentiate what becomes a Baby Cool song versus something for the band.
Baby Cool: That’s a good one. In the early days, I don’t know, I think my songs are a lot more emotional and personal to me, and the Bickies has always been more collaborative. We write all of the songs collaboratively from start to finish and Billy and I write the lyrics together.
So Baby Cool’s like my diary, I guess, and Nice Biscuit is more like a fun project with friends. Of course, they kind of intertwine in some ways. And I think if anything, doing Baby Cool gave me an outlet for those emotions that maybe didn’t fit in the collaborative project of Nice Biscuit.
But then again, actually, our songs are pretty emotional too. I don’t know.
AYSHA: I guess the lines blur and that’s just what happens when you’re making music. I feel like I can hear elements of both in both.
BABY COOL: Yeah. Though that psych inspiration will always weave through my songs with Baby Cool because that’s just what I listen to a lot of the time too. But Billy and I both have folk roots. We grew up singing in choirs and love folk music too, so that kind of weaves in through both as well.
AYSHA: I’ve just got one more question. So looking at your journey from Earthling on the Road to Self Love to now, I was wondering what has changed in the way that you write or what you feel compelled to write about.
BABY COOL: I feel compelled to write about just from a more of a place of deep honesty - not that I was dishonest in the first album but I was just kind of operating on a pretty whimsical plane a lot of the time and I feel like now I'm just a bit more grounded in my life experience and also in whatIi want to write about and what I want to interrogate with my writing.
AYSHA: Thank you so much for chatting with me I'm so excited to hear the record in full!
FIND BABY COOL HERE
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