Elizabeth Winterbourne: What Church Bells and Birdsong Say About Salem
Elizabeth Winterbourne: What Church Bells and Birdsong Say About Salem
The Arizona-Raised Songwriter Turns the Witch Trials Into a Folk Pop Single About Power
The cover of Salem puts Elizabeth Winterbourne in a sunlit forest. She holds a red book to her chest, under the title in white blackletter type. Released on 25 October 2025, the single then builds the same setting in sound. Church bells and forest birdsong sit around an alt-folk and art pop arrangement.
Elizabeth Winterbourne has Salem in the AltPop.News playlist below, among other dream pop and chamber pop picks, and the Elizabeth Winterbourne artist profile keeps the coverage in one place. The single came to this desk through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Give it a listen with the bells in mind, then read on.
The Salem Witch Trials Become A Metaphor For Abuse Of Power On An Alt-Folk Single
Start with the premise. Salem is a song about witches, sort of. In an October 2025 interview with Indie Sound Magazine, Winterbourne explained that she used the Salem witch trials as a parallel for the present day. In particular, she pointed to the years since the MeToo movement, and to men in positions of power who abuse it without real consequences.
She wrote it in anger. Anger at that pattern, and anger at the political situation in the United States at the time. In her telling, the witch is a label for women who do not look, act or speak the way society expects. So the song keeps the imagery but points it forward, at the people doing the branding.
That is a heavy idea for a 4:38 single. However, the presentation carries a lot of it. The blackletter title looks like something lifted from an old manuscript. Meanwhile, the forest on the cover is the same forest you hear in the mix. Equally, the book held close could be a diary or a book of spells, and the cover leaves that open. Finally, Winterbourne wrote both the music and the lyrics.
Church Bells And Forest Birdsong Frame A Folk Story Inside A Lush Pop Arrangement
The arrangement is where the setting turns into sound. Winterbourne has said she asked for the track to feel a little magical and a little whimsical, but dark inside that frame. The answer was texture placed with intent. For example, church bells sit in the background, and the sound of birds in a forest wraps around the listener.
Those details do real work. The bells place the song in a town and its church, the world the accusations came from in 1692. Meanwhile, the birdsong pulls it back out into the woods, which is where the cover sits. As a result, a folk story unfolds inside a pop production. Indie Sound Magazine heard that blend as lush folk storytelling with pop atmosphere.
The Production Team Behind Elizabeth Winterbourne on Salem
The production comes from Christian Reccasina, a New York City-based producer and songwriter. He also produced her previous EP, Lost in Headlights, in 2023. They have worked together on enough songs to share a way of working, and he knows what she likes. Santiago Coto mixed and mastered the single.
That continuity shows in the balance. Winterbourne has said she does not think of the folk and pop sides as something to balance. Instead, she knows the sound she has in mind and stops when the track reaches it. The approach puts the songwriting first and asks the production to build the room around it.
Where To Hear Elizabeth Winterbourne And Which Alt-Folk And Art Pop Listeners Salem Suits
The catalogue behind Salem is steady and well built. The Christina’s World EP arrived in January 2022. Then came Evergreen, Drowning and Upstate in 2023, collected on Lost in Headlights, followed by Smoke Rises in 2024. On stage, she has played SXSW, Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, The Bowery Electric and New York Fashion Week. Her music has also featured on the PBS series Roadtrip Nation.
The listener for this one likes their folk with a sense of theatre. Stevie Nicks is the obvious lineage, since she wrote Rhiannon for Fleetwood Mac around a Welsh witch figure. Winterbourne has even posted her own version of Rhiannon on YouTube. Florence + the Machine is the other reference point, a project that turned folk drama and large, ceremonial arrangements into art pop. Salem draws on both, with its own instinct for image.
From the AltPop.News curator team: “The cover and the mix tell the same story: a forest, a book held close, bells somewhere in the distance. Salem commits to its setting from the artwork to the production, and that is why the anger at its centre lands as a story rather than a lecture.”
You can stream Salem in the Spotify player above, on Apple Music or on Bandcamp. To follow her, Elizabeth Winterbourne is on Spotify and Apple Music. The music video teaser is on the YouTube channel. Meanwhile, her Instagram bio dates the full Salem video for 23 October.
For updates, she posts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X. Every link sits on her Linktree, and the official site carries her bio, shows and press kit.
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