Sallyforth wrote 'Clover' about a storm — now it reflects the moment
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What began as a song about a storm has taken on new meaning: Sallyforth’s new single “Clover” now echoes the tension in the Twin Cities amid an immigration enforcement surge.
The thunderstorm that sparked the song hit last summer. Singer and guitar player Emma Rothwell can still picture the aftermath.
"There were like tornado sirens and green skies,” she said. “It was kind of crazy."
Singer and fiddler Hattie Peach remembers the air felt “static.”
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"Dark blue clouds roll in and the energy in the air is just shifted because something's about to come," she said. "I think that's kind of the vibe that we're conjuring in this song."
To capture that feeling, they leaned into a drone-like violin and cello arrangement that echoes the eerie quiet between storm sirens.
But they never anticipated the song would take on another meaning after months of fear and violence in the Twin Cities.
"It really is kind of that reckoning of all this energy and chaos that can come through,” she said. “To walk around a neighborhood, or to just take in your surroundings after something like that can happen and see the destruction, but also that things are still whole is something that has honestly taken on a new meaning within these past months.”
“It's charged, and I feel like that speaks to this moment that we're in now, too,” Peach said.
After months of rehearsing “Clover,” Peach said it has grown into something they carry with them as they continue to answer fearful times with their joy for music.
"We've been through so much in the past few months that this one feels particularly just sweet. Maybe bittersweet is a better word for it,” Peach said. “It also I really think feels hopeful."
For Rothwell, the song has become something she returns to in difficult moments.
That approach reflects how the band first came together.
Sallyforth has been making music since 2023.
Rothwell and Peach, who were freshman roommates in Duluth, reconnected a few years after graduating to make music, later linking up with Oliver Gerber on lead guitar, Dylan Hilliker on drums and Daisy Forester on bass and cello. Rothwell also performs solo as Emma Jeanne, and Peach plays with her family ensemble, The Penny Peaches.
Nearly every member of the band was going through a breakup when they began playing, setting a foundation of emotional vulnerability.
“It was fun to come together and kind of transform those feelings at that moment into something that was tangible, like a song, and that's funny to look back on now,” Peach said.
“Clover” will be the second single since their EP “Memento Mori.” Their first was “Tightrope,” which they gave to a mutual aid compilation project.
“Clover seeds, they're just so symbolic. You're literally sowing the seeds of your own luck,” Rothwell said.
“That's kind of also kind of emblematic of the band. You put down these thoughts, words, ideas, and you share them with people. And it might take a long time for that to come to fruition...but I think that's kind of special.”
“Clover” by Sallyforth is out today.
