Julia Jacklin Fights to Hold Onto the Present on New Single ‘I Was Neon’

On her latest single, “I Was Neon,” Julia Jacklin goes digging through the past in hopes of holding onto the present. The record arrives as the second single from her forthcoming third studio album Pre Pleasure, set for release on Aug. 26 via Polyvinyl.

In the accompanying self-directed music video, Jacklin unravels “I Was Neon” in its newest form while leaving a trail of music throughout a Melbourne home as she moves from room to room with her guitar in hand. When she isn’t there, she’s swinging over a lake or wandering around a soccer field, asking no one in particular: “I quite like the person that I am/ am I gonna lose myself again?”

“I first wrote ‘I was neon’ for a band called rattlesnack, a short-lived much loved 2019 side project that I played drums in,” Jacklin shared in a statement. “I rewrote it for my album in Montreal, during a time when I was desperately longing for a version of myself that I feared was gone forever. I was thinking of this song when I made the album cover, this song is the album cover really.”

Pre Pleasure marks the first full-length release from the Australian singer-songwriter since 2018’s Crushing. Jacklin introduced the 10-track album with the lead single “Lydia Wears a Cross,” inspired by her childhood obsession with Jesus Christ Superstar.

Whether through the direct references to the 1971 musical in “Lydia Wears a Cross” or through the movie poster for Britney Spears’ Crossroads hanging on the wall in “I Was Neon,” the two initial releases have formed a solid foundation for acute introspection.