"I Don't Know How to Dance": Ella Jane on "We Were Just Dancing", Escapism, and Being an Independent Artist

“All I do is like, jump. I don’t know how to dance," Ella Jane reveals a week after the release of her single "We Were Just Dancing".

The single cover for "We Were Just Dancing"

“I feel like releases are always kind of underwhelming, which is crazy,” she tells me. “It sort of feels like, you know, when it's New Year's and then the clock strikes midnight, and you're like, ‘Okay, I guess it's a new year now,’... But I'm glad it's out in the world. I feel like I've sat with this song for a really long time, and I'm just really proud of how it turned out.”

The first part of the song that came to her was the piano riff in the intro and post-chorus, which had been spinning in her head for a year before it was put to use. The topic of the song had circled her mind in a similar way, “I went through this breakup, and I wasn't really able to write about it for the first couple months… I was just playing [piano,] as I do when I am, like, toying with a particular riff or motif… And it just kind of happened naturally.”

A lyric that stuck out to me was, “What was I supposed to do? Act unkind? Be so cruel?” Ella explains that she doesn’t think cruelty is ever the answer when faced with hard situations, although such an approach can make a situation feel easier despite having the opposite effect. What she notes is particularly easy, however, is being cruel to yourself, “I think something that people struggle with that I've been able to wrestle with through songwriting and… years of therapy, is admitting when you're engaging in self-destructive behavior. I think a lot of the time, it's so difficult because… it feels embarrassing.” That’s where art becomes valuable. Music is largely about saying the hard things; thus, it resonates when artists like Ella open up about these habits.

Ella Jane, photo by Carianne Older.

Aside from music, she finds other ways to escape. “Dancing is the best thing in the entire world, ever,” she told followers in a TikTok video titled “20 Things I’ve Learned in 20 Years,” posted in late 2021. She preached, “You do look dumb, but stop caring about that.” Despite today's revelation that she doesn’t actually know how to dance, “Ridin’ Solo” by Jason Derulo is a favorite for the activity.

She reveals a more tangible form of escapism, “I'm an avid journaler. But for me, it's, like, not even a way to figure out answers. It's just like a way to record misery,” she laughs. “I think the only thing that, like, will make me aware of if I've grown or dealt with something is, like, the very act of documenting something. You're able to see your growth. And things just kind of… happen on their own.” Additionally, she attempts to escape the false sense of escapism phones provide by using Bricks, devices that help her stay wary of her screen time, “I have a very addictive personality, and I’m really on my phone too fucking much.”

Ella’s also recently found Substack and the communities brought by seeing movies in theaters (she particularly notes “third spaces”) wholesome. I find these observations interestingly empowering considering that people often give politically outspoken artists such as Ella a hard time for quote unquote “only seeing the bad in the world”. As a similarly outspoken woman myself, I love how she and I share a similar intensity in our adoration for these concepts as we do in our anger regarding gas prices. As I’ve seen quite a few TikTok videos say recently, “Whatever you do, girl, don’t lose your whimsy but also don’t lose your political rage”.

The uncropped Marginalia album cover, Ella's final project with Fader Label, photo by Maddy Rotman.

One of the biggest changes in Ella’s career has been the switch from being signed to a record label to being an independent artist. This change has political connotations in the modern music industry, though Ella doesn’t refer to it as such. She signed with Fader Label in 2020 but left when her contract expired. I ask her what the hardest thing to leave behind in her career has been, and she laughs and answers, “A label budget”. Despite this, she says she’s had a lot of cool opportunities being independent that she wouldn’t have had if she was signed.

Stay tuned for your next opportunity to see her perform, and you too might get to witness Ella’s ultimate party trick – a live performance of her favorite song to perform, “Party Trick”! Stream “We Were Just Dancing” here.