Editor Note: Last month, Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter V Torres released her captivating and empowering sophomore album Woman. A press release described the release as a “deeply personal record about identity, resilience, healing, grief, freedom, and self-discovery. Across seven tracks, V blends expansive indie rock with Americana, desert psychedelia, Latin textures, and cinematic songwriting to create something that feels both intimate and surprisingly universal.”
That includes the title track, a powerful anthem of transformation and self-discovery. You can watch the music video for it below:
Torres penned an exclusive Artist Essay for SWT after checking out the site and being intrigued by our name. It led her to think about the city where she was born and raised, which did not have a water tower, and its impact on her growth. In the essay, she reflects on Harbor City because it has always been a place few people know, even if they are from LA. But most importantly it’s eccentric nature was pivotal in shaping her songwriting journey.
All my life, when asked where I am from, I have struggled to name the city where I was born and raised. Harbor City. No one knows where or what it is. I can give people the general answer: I’m from Los Angeles, but that is so broad. I usually default to Torrance or Redondo Beach to start to get a reaction out of people. But that isn’t true, I am from a very different city. Harbor City is considered a community of Los Angeles and is not part of the neighboring cities that are known as the “South Bay.”
I am so grateful to have grown up in Harbor City. It is a wonderfully diverse place. Rich with different cultures and food, I had many friends from all walks of life. The sound of the train behind my house going by several times throughout the day and into the wee hours of the night was something that slightly rattled our house. A sound I miss hearing and feeling.
The heat—it was always 10 degrees warmer in Harbor City than the neighboring beach cities. I remember countless times driving to the beach and turning around once we hit the marine layer of gloom. We would come home and run around in the sprinklers instead.
My parents had an in-ground jacuzzi which served more as a kiddy pool since the temperature never exceeded lukewarm tub status.
We came out to our cars to head to school several times, only to find broken glass and that our minivan had been stolen. I guess there was no school that day. I remember one time our car wasn’t stolen but taken for a joyride, and my mom was so glad that our cassette tapes of Tori Amos and Pearl Jam were unscathed.
Harbor City fed my imagination. I played with friends of different ethnicities, making up games and finding ways to entertain ourselves. I directed and starred in countless home movies with my sister. It was a great place to grow up. Sure, we were farther from the mall, the beach or a body of water, but we had the beautiful asphalt and rows of tract homes to explore. We knew it inside and out. We found comfort and curiosity in the minimalism.
If you do know Harbor City, it is likely from Reggie, the celebrity alligator, or from a stint at Kaiser Permanente, not from my little neck of the woods, surrounded by a few cul-de-sacs and fit for a gang of kids with not a lot of things.
Writing songs in my brick-laden backyard in the evening, staring at the stars and being excited about the possibilities life has to offer, I wouldn’t change a thing. It is where the songwriting journey started for me. I grew up in a place most people have never heard of. It wasn’t glamorous, but it gave me something I didn’t know I needed: space to dream.
You can connect with V Torres via the links in her author box below
V Torres
Contributor
V Torres is a Los Angeles based alt-rock singer-songwriter
