Zanna Black first realised she hated the pressure of live performance aged seven when she told her mum she couldn’t face another piano exam. Luckily the lessons continued minus the dreaded grade tests and a happier Zanna practised and played all through school and into a music degree at university in Brisbane. She began writing songs and had early success when her composition Down To The Waterside was used under the credits of an Australian feature film shot around her home town next to the Richmond River in northern NSW. The song also found its way onto Canadian TV as a smaltzy accompaniment to a romantic rowing boat scene in the hit reality series Hockey Wives.

The $2000 royalty check from that success helped her survive busking on the streets of London where she slowly shed her childhood performance anxiety. But dwindling funds forced her to get a ‘real job’ with an online cash management company in the City. “On my first day of the job I asked which room they kept all the cash in. I had a lot to learn.” Living in a tiny shared flat, she only had room for a cheap acoustic guitar so she started to write with that and her trusty lifelong friend the flute. The pandemic sent her scurrying back home where the peace and quiet of the Australian bush inspired more songwriting. 

She’s now emerged with a bag full of new offerings. “There are plenty of meaningful things to write about everywhere you look but I tend to end up where it seems a lot of songwriters go, writing about relationships, breakups, the boyfriend who starts out showering you with attention and then your lounge room with his cigarette butts.” Zanna combines lilting melodies with sometimes caustic lyrics in a style that might be labeled as easy-listening powered by hard experience. A line that sums her up is one from her new release, recorded with studio musicians back in Brisbane: “I know that I’m a sparrow, but I grew up with the gulls”.