CASCADE

Scottish singer-songwriter Olivia Rafferty releases ‘Cascade,’ the second single off of her upcoming album, Typical Forever.

‘Cascade’ is a waltzing track that blends the nostalgia of 90's Americana with alternative pop-rock. The song is emotive and rolling, taking listeners on a journey from the tops of mountains to the ocean shore, as this song is part of a larger conceptual project about geology. Through a bed of jangling acoustic guitars, organs and piano, listeners will catch influences such as Paula Cole, Counting Crows and The Corrs.

“Cascade tells the story of change through the perspective of a rock, basically,” Olivia says. “As water and wind dislodge this rock from its mountaintop and tumbles it out to sea, it becomes changed. I wanted to tell a story about how people can choose to change at different points in their lives, and how life is really is an endless cycle of becoming and unbecoming. Geology has been an incredible source of metaphors for this project and I think change is a theme which sits at the heart of it.”

‘Cascade’ is the second track to drop from Olivia’s first album, a long-awaited conceptual project that features geology as the central inspiration for the songs. The album Typical Forever has been backed by the Geologist’s Association in the UK and was also funded in part by a successful Kickstarter campaign in early 2024. It filters human emotions and experiences through the lens of geology, and features topics such as volcanoes, fossils, ice age floods and sedimentary rock. It comes out in March 2025.

LYRICS

I know I came here

Said I would stay here

There’s a dull shimmer that comes with the comfort of time

I’m doing just fine

But I’ve looked down the valley

And I hear the rallying

Cry of a life that chases and captures my mind

I wonder if I…

I feel the world is expanding around me

Couldn’t stop if I tried

No longer gonna be right where you found me

If I

If I tumble down

Hit the ground

I’m running away

Cascade

I found a river that carries me different

Never thought I would move in such wonderful ways

feels so strange

I’m getting finer

I’m getting shinier

I’m getting to the down to edge where it’s blue and it’s gold

And that’s all I know

Guess there’s a leap of faith I’m okay taking

Never knew it til I

Rolled off the mountain and fed all the aching

When I

When I tumbled down

Hit the ground

I’m running away

Cascade

Change is all I wanna know

Put me down then elevate me

I’ll go where the rivers go

Staying still is suffocating

Now all the newness is faded and useless

Oceans away from the place that I used to call home

The years pass on

But one day I’ll rise to the top of that mountain

The wind and the rain make a beautiful fountain

And I will go

I will tumble down

Hit the ground

And I’ll run away

Cascade