Courtney Barnett Took Inspiration From Near-Death Experience

Melbourne singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett cheated death and she wants you to hear all about it – and sing along.

In a recent interview, she recounted the incident that inspired her latest track Avant Gardener.

"It's funny now, but I was doing some gardening and I had a weird allergic reaction and I still don't know what it is because I didn't go to the doctor after it. I couldn't breathe and I got this rash on my arms from the plants and I had to go to hospital. It was very dramatic; it was a bit too dramatic. It was silly,” she laughs.

“It was all these weeds down the side of the house, y'know, 'the pathway that doesn't get used'. We started this cleaning rampage and that was the first day of it. Then I ended up going to hospital so we never finished it. We've just cleaned the house again this weekend gone and I wasn't allowed to go in the garden.”

While we hope it's the last time Barnett has to sing about a personal scrape with death, it looks like she'll continue to be honest in her lyrics as opposed to just using metaphors.

“It just feels more realistic than painting a picture with poetic and flowery words – it's nice to go straight to the point. I love [metaphors] at the best of times but sometimes its [good] to be completely matter-a-fact about everything. I figure there's so many songs in the world and there's about a million songs about the exact same thing. I try not to write love songs because I think they're so easy, so I try and pick a certain, very distinct story and write a song about it.”

Read the full interview.