Never be cruel to a songwriter is a lesson some people learn the hard way. And we’re not talking about Taylor Swift’s exes.
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Queensland singer-songwriter Hayley Marsten has released a new single, Money Can’t Buy Class, and the song takes aim at a female who insulted the young artist.
While Marsten did not divulge what was said to her, she described her response as a cheeky song.
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“As a songwriter you have a little bit of a privilege of always getting to have the last word, so I definitely think I got that with this song,” Marsten said.
“At the time I was just quite shocked that someone would even say these things to somebody else, but I think when you are a songwriter and it’s so much a part of what you do in everyday life, the more you think about something, the more it can become a song.”
The single is taken from Marsten’s current EP Lonestar which debuted at #8 on the ARIA Country Charts, #1 on the Australian Independent Records Chart and #3 on the iTunes Country Chart when it was released almost a year ago.
The two previous singles, Until You and Second Fiddle, both cracked the Top 30 in the Australian Country Airplay Charts
Looking back on the time since the EP release, Marsten says she has received plenty of positive feedback to her songs.
“I’ve got so many lovely messages of people saying they relate to the songs,” she said.
“As an artist and a songwriter, what you really want is for people to relate to your music.”
And that looks set to continue with the new single, while a video clip for the song was also released on May 7.
“I think Money Can’t Buy Class is a statement that a lot of people can understand. I think with the video as well, it gives it an extra little bit of a kick to it.”
The video clip was shot in Marsten’s hometown of Gladstone on the Queensland coast after she received funding from an arts program in the region.
Marsten applied for the Regional Arts Development grant at the end of last year, and after getting $10,000 in funding, a crew from The Filmery headed to her hometown to film two video clips.
The video for Money Can’t Buy Class is the first of those two clips to be released and provided Marsten with the chance to rope in extras for the shoot.
“I got to include a lot of people who have been supporters of mine from the very beginning and they’re actually in the video, so it was very special to be able to give back to them.
“We had such a great time filming it. It’s such a silly, funny video and that was definitely the mood on set when we filmed it,” she said.
