Dashville is a name familiar to many Australian music aficionados – primarily as a festival that features the best of alt-country and other artists. Matt ‘Magpie’ Johnston is a co-founder of Dashville, and he’s also a singer-songwriter under the moniker Magpie Diaries.
Sanctuary is the debut album from Magpie Diaries, released in 2018, and it’s been supported by tour dates around the country. The latest single from the album is ‘Honey’, and Magpie wrote it after he passed an elderly man selling honey by the side of the road outside of Singleton, New South Wales. Magpie says that the man looked happy – ‘It got me thinking that this elderly man could be me one day.’
That happiness has influenced the writing and the recording of this delightful song, which is actually a love song wrapped around a message of sustainable living. If that sounds improbable, well, just listen. The key to it all is honey.
Sanctuary is out now.
Magpie Diaries is on tour:
