Bity Booker: Dreaming in the Morning

Originally published in the March-April 2022 edition of Folk London Magazine

Booker is a creative powerhouse: musician, illustrator, and occasional animator and puppeteer.

Her creative endeavors seem driven by a playful and insatiable curiosity, uninhibited and joyful.

She has written a children’s book (with its own accompanying song, of course), creates all of

her own album art, and has recorded several EPs and an album since her debut recording in

2012. Her voice is ethereal, reminiscent of Malvina Reynolds (and, indeed, she has recorded a

lovely cover of “Little Boxes” on her first EP, See You @ Elephant Tree).

Dreaming in the Morning was recorded on analogue tape in Booker’s living room in 2021, and it

is peaceful and odd and a bit sad all at once. She describes the album as “a dreamy ode to

nature, about that instant when alone with your mind in the woods, you become one with the

trees and the birds and everything else seems to fall into place, quietly.” The title track in

particular feels like sitting at the foot of a tree surrounded by lichen and mushrooms and the

smell of loam: “Oh how we wish that music was in the morning; we meet at night and sing our

dreams ‘til the morning; where the girls are a-sleeping, where the girls are a-dreaming, in the

meadow in the morning.”

Booker created the album art for Dreaming in the Morning, as she has for all of her past

projects, and the cover features Miss Violetta Snow, the mascot of the album who likes to go

bushwalking, cherishes silence and has two magpies as friends. Miss Snow takes to the park in

a corduroy dress with her magpie friends in the video for the track “Gone Bushwalking.”A

second video - this one made utilizing stop-motion and paper puppets of Booker and her guitar -

was released shortly afterward for “Sad Song.” Both videos were homemade by Booker. The

songs are lovely on their own, but I would recommend spending time with the music videos and

the art for the full whimsical effect.

Dreaming in the Morning was released on 5 March and is available for purchase at

SOPHIE SCHLEICHER