It’s been a transformative few years for British singer-songwriter Emma Bradley. Known for her emotionally rich songwriting, Bradley has slowly carved out a space for herself in the indie scene with previous releases that leaned into vulnerability and reflection. But her latest EP, Winona’s World, marks a creative shift—both sonically and thematically. Inspired by artists like James Blake and Bon Iver, the project takes a more abstract and cinematic turn, introducing listeners to a new character: Winona.
Created as a way to explore darker emotions she found difficult to express under her own name, Winona became the voice for the parts of Emma that felt harder to share. Set in an imagined world, the EP unpacks themes like queerness, loneliness, abandonment, and mental health, with layered production that blends electronic textures with live instrumentation.
Following her departure from label and management, the project also represents a step into creative independence. Self-produced and shaped largely from her living room, Winona’s World is Emma Bradley’s most personal and exploratory work to date.
To celebrate the release of Winona’s World, Emma Bradley chats to 1883 and gives a track-by-track breakdown of the new EP, revealing the hidden meaning behind each song.
“queen in your pocket”
This song feels like a reflection on innocence, childhood and simpler things/times to me. The main lyric ‘I’ve heard that you’ve got the queen in your pocket, but these coins don’t mean a thing’ is about money and growing up and forgetting what actually really matters, or getting a bit lost.
Queen in your pocket is a metaphor for a bank note with the queen’s face on it in someone’s pocket so to speak. It’s about returning to simple things and innocent things that make you happy before things get a little complicated and harder as you get older.
“bad apple”
Bad apple is based around the idea of choosing someone or something to love so deeply and as you get deeper into it you realise it was the wrong thing, something harmful, you bit into a ‘bad apple’. The thing or person you love the most being the thing that could kill you.
It’s effectively about someone (or something) hurting you and leaving you all alone, and reflecting on the fact you had unknowingly made the wrong choice and not being able to cope. It’s also about trusting that things and people are going to be as good as you, and sometimes they just are not. Sometimes people act in ways you could never imagine yourself acting and that’s why sometimes we get hurt badly and unexpectedly.
“let me in”
I wrote let me in about someone I loved who was going through a really hard time with their mental health. They were so inside of their head and nobody could get through to them, it was heartbreaking to watch. It’s about wanting them to let you in and let you help them or be there for them. It’s so difficult to see someone you love in a bad place mentally, because sometimes there is so little you can do if they don’t want to (or don’t know how to) accept your help.
It’s about that really, and just like a sweet song about wanting to be there for someone and telling them you are there for the bad and the good and showing them how much you love them.
“that door”
This song follows on from themes in “let me in” and “bad apple”, where somebody is about to leave you and you’re sort of pleading with them not to. You’re not really understanding why they want to leave and you know when they get to the other side of the door and it closes you will be alone. It’s also about uncertainty and not knowing what is on the other side of a decision you make, or a situation, or a feeling or time in your life.
Nobody knows what is on the other side of the doors in life until you walk through them, I guess, and sometimes you are left on the other side.
“Wonderdog’s theme”
This is a piano piece that I wrote for my dog. I have two dogs and they are such a huge comfort to me. It makes me think of my dog running through a park or field towards me. My dogs have got me through really hard things, and it feels like a nice comforting moment on the EP where other songs are heavier.
“serotonin skies”
This song is about falling in love with someone who isn’t in a good head space perhaps and can’t be what you need them to be. It’s sort of the book end of the story, it’s about after that person has left you. The ‘serotonin sky’ is a metaphor for the inside of your head and how sometimes there are more stars in the sky and happy feelings than other times.
When I was writing this song I thought a lot about queerness and how it is so isolating to be in the closet but how it is also very isolating if you have an experience that makes you realise your queerness and then have it come to an end abruptly. Like seeing through the door and then somebody closing it again. It’s also honestly a bit of a breakup song and about feeling really distraught about it. The whole concept is about how being with someone can make you feel so happy and like there are ‘stars in the sky again’, like everything is beautiful around you.
And so when they leave it can feel like everything goes dark again for a second. It’s very dramatic from me honestly.
Follow Emma Bradley @emma.brad
