Zara Phillips - Meditation & Kitkats (2020)

Singer/songwriter Zara Philips has quite the backstory. Born in the UK, adopted, moved to the US, continually searching for her Italian birth father only to find him later in life a few miles from her home in New Jersey. A backup singer who found herself touring with Bob Geldof in the ‘80s, Phillips is finally coming into her own with her new album Meditations & Kit Kats, which includes the single “Perfect Strangers” premiering here with American Songwriter.

Oh, and her new album features guitar great Richard Thompson, who produced and plays guitar on the record, and with whom she tours and sings backup.

“Perfect Strangers” will resonate with fans of Shoot Out The Lights, Richard and Linda Thompson’s classic meditation on the toll of emotional distance and the psychological games it plays on the mind. Thompson’s distinctive guitar work adds depth and a supportive musical bed, while Phillips solemnly circles and dances around those closest to her, wondering who to trust. David Mansfield (Dylan’s Rolling Thunder, T-Bone Burnett, Alpha Band) adds sympathetic fiddle and Phillips’ daughter Arden joins in on harmony vocals.

Fell from a cloud, look where I landed/Always dancing with danger

Running and falling, shaking and breaking/Dancing from stranger to stranger

Why do I have to pay the price/For crimes I didn’t do?

“I always think a song is about more than one thing,” Phillips says. “But with ‘Perfect Strangers,’ that’s what it feels like as an adoptee. You’re standing with people that are your blood and you look like them. But I’m a stranger to them and they’re strangers to me. All the lyrics in the song are about having to mold oneself and adapt. Particularly in the last few years of meeting my birth father, here I am again, the stranger on my best behavior because I want to be accepted by these people.”