
Her Skin On “I Started A Garden”
Italian singer/songwriter gives Under the Radar a track-by-track insight
Sep 30, 2022
Web Exclusive
Meet Her Skin, the nom de plume of 25-year-old singer/songwriter Sara Ammendolia. Her debut UK album I Started A Garden is out today (Friday 30th September) and follows her three critically acclaimed singles - “Suitable”, “Heavy-Hearted” and “Confident” - which came out earlier this year.

Originally from the Italian city of Modena. Sara started writing songs when she was fifteen years old having always had a huge passion for music. The first song she ever liked was “Le Freak” by Chic and she now takes inspiration for her own music from many artists including Sibylle Baier, Vashti Bunyan, Mac DeMarco, Beirut, Joni Mitchell, Jay Malinowski and The Kinks.
“It took me three years to write and record these nine songs,” she says, “And I am aware that I’m not the same person I was when I started working on this record, but that’s what makes it so special to me. It’s an album about the lessons I learned, the people I loved, the time it took me to heal.”
I Started A Garden is released digitally from today on all streaming platforms with a vinyl edition to follow on 6th January 2023 via WWNBB. A fourth single - the album’s title track - comes out next Friday (7th October).
Sara goes on to say, “I Started a Garden is a crash course on how to deal with the mess of being in your twenties, feeling lonely, nostalgic and out of place and not knowing where you belong. While writing this album I was just waiting to become myself again, but I learned that everything you bury is a seed.”
Already this year, Sara has performed at numerous festivals including SXSW in Texas, The Great Escape in Brighton, Primavera in Barcelona and Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg, while also embarking on multiple tours around the world taking in Italy, France, Germany, Holland, Hungary, India and the United States.
She’s also due to play at Mondo in New York in October with more live dates to be announced imminently.
In the meantime, Sara has given Under the Radar an exclusive Track-by-Track rundown of each of I Started A Garden‘s nine songs.
Track 1 – BONES
“Bones” is a song about meeting someone new and wanting to be accepted for who you are by that person. It’s scary to open up, but I think that the desire to do so is truly something that you either feel in your bones or don’t feel at all. “Bones” felt like the perfect opening song for this album; I’m just telling you that I’m back and that my music is different and that I’m someone different too, but I hope you like me anyway.
Track 2 – CONFIDENT
I wrote “Confident” because I needed a reminder that perfection isn’t real and that it’s ok to mess up. I needed a reminder to stop comparing my behind the scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel. It’s ok to feel bad, it’s ok to use the wrong words, to waste time, to be late. It’s ok to leave everything untitled.
Track 3 – OLDER
“Older” is a song about needing time alone to grow, to think, to learn, to love, to learn new ways to love. I wrote it in a time where I felt like I had already hit the bottom and the only thing I could do was to be patient and to become a better version of myself.
Track 4 – SOBER
“Sober” is probably the silliest song on the album and it is about finding out that the person you’re going out with is dating someone else and being angry about it.
Track 5 – HEAVY-HEARTED
“Heavy-Hearted” is a song about trying to move on from someone and knowing you haven’t really moved on from them. It’s about being ghosted and still wishing them happy birthday, about saying you’d never call them again but still constantly checking your phone, about meeting them at a party with their new crush and pretending everything is ok.
Track 6 – SUITABLE
“Suitable” is a love song. I wrote it as a reminder that love should be something natural and spontaneous and that it’s not something that you can force. I wanted to write a song that described this idea of love as something romantic, that wins all distances, something that’s not really under your control.
Track 7 – CHANGING
“Changing” is a song about not being able to let go of someone that’s been in your life for a long-time but knowing that things between you are not working anymore. It’s about not liking things that change and having a hard time adapting.
Track 8 – FORGET ME
“Forget Me” is a song about breaking up with someone and realising that all you were doing while you were together was hurting each other.
Track 9 – IT’S HARD TO BREATHE / I STARTED A GARDEN
“It’s Hard to Breathe/ I Started a Garden” is a song I wrote during the pandemic. It’s about missing someone but not wanting to miss them and about trying to occupy your time by taking care of your plants at home. I remember that I wanted to stop thinking about someone so desperately that he would end up being in my dreams almost every night. I think this song has a positive outcome: It’s hard to breathe and therefore I’m starting a garden to grow and learn and heal.
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