Nine Songs: Suki Waterhouse

“There have been a lot of new things happening at once,” she admits on a call from London, a month away from the release of her sophomore album. The biggest change of all — and the next hyphen to add to her ever-growing list of titles — is that she became a first-time mum at the start of the year.

Where most of her debut album saw Waterhouse look at her life from a bird’s eye perspective, peering at and tearing apart the toxic relationships she experienced thus far, she’s finding that love, comfort, and motherhood can be just as inspiring.

After years of being solely seen as the model-hyphenate and not being taken seriously as an artist in her own right, Waterhouse seemingly proved naysayers wrong with her debut album, I Can’t Let Go. If her debut was proof of her commitment to her craft, Memoir of a Sparklemuffin is an exploration of her own internal metamorphosis.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the playlist she listens to every day. “I have one on my phone that has everything on there — The Magnetic Fields, a song by Arthur Godfrey called “It’s All Part of the Story.” I listen to Macy Gray quite a lot. I listen to Karen O pretty much all the time.”

The thread that ties all of Waterhouse’s Nine Songs is a love for storytelling. It’s apt, then, that she would be selected to open for fellow storyteller, songwriter, and friend Taylor Swift on Eras Tour. “I haven’t even looked at it since posting,” she laughs, speaking to me an hour after the news finally hit the internet. “I’m so excited and honoured.”

Although transformation was on Waterhouse’s mind during the making of Memoir of a Sparklemuffin, her Nine Songs serve as snapshots of the past versions of herself. The version of her sitting on the Hammersmith tube replaying a song that reminded her of a crush, or the version that found freedom in a track that celebrated the moment when you’re finally letting go of a toxic relationship.

As much as her own songs become similar soundtracks for her listeners, this selection weaves together a kaleidoscope of Waterhouse — holding mirrors to herself to transport her back to where and who she was when she first heard them.