Released on the 16th of October, ‘Rose Marie’ is the latest single from August Benjamin. An upbeat track that gets your heart racing from the get go, Benjamin combines a rootsy country sound with good old rock and roll as he sings of Rose Marie, who yearns for a different life to the one she’s born into – and makes it her mission to find it.
Rose Marie is the story of August Benjamin’s paternal grandmother, who was a German-born Jew, who fled the country when Hitler rose to power. After a year hiding with her mother in Paris, watching the children playing in the street and knowing she could never join them, the pair make it to the Spanish island of Mallorca, at which point she converts to Catholicism.
We follow Rose Marie as she she sails off, leaving her life behind her for a new one in America, where she can be the person that “they would never let her be”. All the while, Benjamin keeps up the urgency, as Rose Marie moves to Los Angeles, his guitar never lets up, accompanied by a steady drum beat. Rose Marie was still only 13 years old when all this happens; there’s quite a lot going on for someone so young. Thankfully, she’s able to make a life for herself, she’s living in the Valley, has seven children, and as she watches over them at the Christmas dinner table, she realises she’s got that life that she always wanted.
‘Rose Marie’ is heartfelt, but at times quite sobering, with an underlying gratitude from Benjamin, and the knowledge that he’d not be around if it wasn’t for Rose Marie’s courage. Listen to Rose Marie below, and find out more about August Benjamin and his music online on Instagram, TikTok, and Spotify.
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