Yule witchcraft festival is a celebration that takes place during the winter solstice, typically around December 21st. It is a time when many people of pagan and witchcraft traditions come together to honor the changing seasons and the return of the sun. During the festival, practitioners engage in various rituals and practices to align themselves with the natural cycles of the Earth. One of the main focuses of Yule is the concept of rebirth and new beginnings, symbolized by the return of the sun after the longest night of the year. Many witches and pagans see Yule as a time of reflection and introspection. It is a time to let go of the past and make room for new opportunities and personal growth.

“Mrs. Magic” by Strawberry Guy

Strawberry Guy bears fruit with the new dream-pop single "Mrs. Magic".

From releasing Soundcloud singles to becoming a streaming superstar, Strawberry Guy’s (Alex Stephens) music career has been as deliciously unique as his name.

Moving to Liverpool to study music, Strawberry began writing and realising his own tracks a year ago while playing with The Orielles. He was encouraged by the artistic vibe of the city and, surrounded by other musicians, Alex felt compelled to find his own voice.

Driven by his love for music, he released his first single “Without You” to Soundcloud without much thought. The response he received was astronomical, leading to an avid fan-base with now almost 2 million Youtube streams. For Alex, following his heart put him exactly in the right place, creating moving dream-pop that spoke to young people, building a group of passionate pop ‘berries’ around the world.

“Taking my Time to Be” is Alex’s debut mini-album which is an exciting maturation on his sound from his original demo. Rich in hook-driven melodies, bubbling synths and passionate songwriting, the new tracks reveal Strawberry as a pop star in the making.

The track, “Mrs. Magic” captures the essence of the new album, atmospheric and hopeful, combining pop hooks with orchestral instruments to convey the uncertainty of new starts. Long story short, we’re fully on the berry-wagon.

To quench your appetite until the album drops on the 27th of Septemeber, have a listen to the single, “Mrs. Magic” and preorder here!

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Mrs magic strawberry guy lyrics meaning

Tiptoe between the toadstools of Liverpool’s city parks, and amongst the foliage you might find a Strawberry Guy, contemplating his next chord-progression. Composing hi-fi symphonies from within his humble abode, the Welsh-born songwriter is ready to share the fruits of his labour with debut album Sun Outside My Window. A timeless vista of ethereal balladry looking towards 19th Century musical maestros and works of art, it brings new meaning to the term ‘Modern Classic’ and is the most optimistic of lockdown records yet.

“It’s about seeing the simple things in life and them making you happy,” tells Alex Stephens, the Guy behind the Strawberry. “I remember this day when I was really down… looking out the window, the sun beaming in was beautiful, it made me want to go outside – it was simple but made me so happy in that instance.”

A one-man impressionist, painting majestic soundscapes, Strawberry Guy blends truthful lyrics with lush arrangements to conjure new emotive worlds. Inspired by composers of the Romantic period, or Debussy, Ravel, and other classical artists of the 1800s, his wonderland moves like a Monet painting where arpeggios dance between meadows of dazzling dynamics and dramatic key changes. As former keyboard player of The Orielles and Trudy and The Romance, the light through his floor to ceiling windows has caused a dramatic Greenhouse Effect and now ripening on solo terms, his innocent uploads of ‘Without You’ and ‘F-Song’ comfort 2 million Spotify listeners a month. ‘Mrs Magic’ has received 30 million streams, landing at #13 in its chart and countless fan-created videos have appeared on YouTube. “Throughout history composers have tried to capture emotion, painting their own impressionist pictures with musical brush strokes… I guess I’m just trying to do the same and people enjoy that,” he suggests modestly.

Impresario at the helm of his own imaginary orchestra, Sun Outside My Window has evolved from improvised piano melodies, a practice honed through his classical training, and manipulating violin sound effects on the Nord keyboard. He has even surprised himself with the outcome after creating challenges to seamlessly flow from one chord to the next. Named by musical friends Her’s after his impeccable taste in milkshakes, Strawberry Guy upturns ‘bedroom artist’ perception, as each idea is crafted into a widescreen wonder where vocals tag-team instrumentals and countermelodies flourish within the Georgian walls of his Liverpool flat’s small space. “I want it to sound like I’ve squeezed an 80-piece orchestra into my room, and for listeners to wonder how all those strings got there,” he says. “Working on the 4-part harmonies, the orchestra became real; I began believing in myself.”

Imitating nature’s effect on emotion, like 70s songwriters, or the fantastical soundtracks accompanying vibrant scenes in the Japanese animated Studio Ghibli films and video games, landscape is brought to the fore. Monet’s picturesque Meadow at Giverny features as the album’s accompanying artwork – perhaps a reminder of the rural Welsh countryside views through his childhood home’s window; “I was inspired by how calm and peaceful the image felt. Its painted lines show real-life scenes in a magical way, which to me reflects my music.” Elsewhere blossoming motifs depict the growth of a relationship (‘As We Bloom’), capturing his 13-year-old self’s obsession with the idiosyncratic harps of Coraline OST’s ‘Exploration’ and offering an escape. “When I write, music becomes this meditative place I go to with heavenly images of natural beauty,” he says of songwriting’s healing power.

Just as the first Strawberry Guy EP Taking My Time To Be offered a slowing down for the soul, Sun Outside My Window was musically unhurried, written and recorded over 2 years. The songs transpose to higher keys and pivot with chordal climax and dramatic crescendo (‘When Morning Comes’) or vocals boldly step forwards capturing grown confidence in becoming comfortable in himself without the crutch of relying on others (‘Company’). Like his love for the understated cinematic aesthetic blend of Sigur Rós and symphonic magnificence of Holst’s suite of Planets, every part is propelled by emotion. “’Venus, the Bringer of Peace’ is incredible,” he says. “Those strings, flutes, harp… the way they encapsulate each planet’s persona is amazing.” Meanwhile piano-led finale ‘A White Lie’, recorded at 2am in the morning, offers a Strawberry Guy first as keys and reverb-free vocals were laid down in one take. “Recording as a lone berry meant I could run with my emotions in the moment and deliver something true; it would have been an entirely different album had it been recorded in a studio,” he says.

Modern Classic? Only time will tell. For now this Guy’s happy-sad world is here to get the juices flowing and with, pandemic permitting, a US tour in 2022, life looks a whole lot sweeter. Until then, take it slow, be at one with the wilderness and remember, when life gives you lemons, swap them for Strawberries.

Strawberry Guy // Interview

With only a handful of releases to his name, Strawberry Guy – the adopted moniker of Welsh-born bedroom-pop artist Alex Stephens – had already enjoyed his fair share of success. Aside from memorable stints twinkling keyboards in well-loved indie outfits The Orielles and Trudy and the Romance, his uber-dreamy ‘Mrs Magic’ became an unexpected Tik-Tok sensation in 2019: the song verges on 50 million Spotify hits at the time of writing.

Two years later, Strawberry Guy is braced to attack the universe with his most ambitious release yet. His debut full-length, ‘Sun Outside My Window’, primed for launch at the end of October via Melodic records, boldly redefines all expectations of what bedroom-pop is capable of. Where his previous ‘Taking My Time To Be’ EP nestled itself in a four-poster serenity of pillowy synths and low-light textures more typically associated with the genre, ‘Sun Outside…’ pulls back the curtains and ushers in bedazzling, sun-kissed soundscapes from beyond the glass.

Drawing from a life-long obsession with film soundtracks, 70s songwriters, and in particular, the art and music of the 19th century – the romanticism of Ravel and Debussy, as well as the evocative impressionism of Monet, rank among his all-time favourites (the latter’s ‘Meadow at Giverny’ takes the album’s cover) – Strawberry Guy delivers a lavishly sculptured debut. His diaristic songwriting, blessed by his DIY orchestra spun entirely from keyboard samples and plug-ins, conspires to mark him out as a unique voice in contemporary pop.

During a video-call with the man himself on a sunny Monday afternoon in his Liverpool flat, amid a somewhat tangential discussion about Ravel’s ‘Daphne and Chloe’ (during which I became audience to his passionate retelling of the original Greek myth), we delved into those aforementioned influences and inspirations, discussing the making of the record, and how he’s finding life now as a bona fide solo artist.

But first, the conversation began with an unexpected turn…

…What’s your opinion on Magic Mushrooms?

I took mushrooms once three years ago and it terrified me! ‘Mrs Magic’ is about the trip! I became so insulated. I don’t think it was for me. Or maybe I took too much. I forgot who I was. It was really scary. Everything I’d learnt to become really comfortable with myself just disappeared. I was like: “I’ve spent so much time on that and now it’s all gone!”. I felt like I’d been away for years.

‘Mrs Magic’ did pretty well in the end. How did you feel about that song and how it blew up? How did that happen?

[shrugs] I don’t really know. I didn’t have TikTok for ages, then my manager was like: “you need to get TikTok…”. I didn’t really try to do anything. It’s a bit weird really. I don’t really believe it.

Moving on… how are you feeling about your album finally coming out?

I have a weird answer: I feel a bit sad! It’s like the end. I’m really excited for people to hear it, I am! But it’s kind of like letting a baby go. It’s like I’ve raised a kid and it’s leaving to go to uni.

I want to talk about that creative process a bit more. How do these songs come together?

I’ve never sat down and thought: “I’m going to write a song, right now”. It has to come quite naturally. That’s why I think it’s a slow process

I’ll have this very heightened sense of happiness, or sadness, and I’ll write when I’m at the top of one of those emotions. When I feel sad, it helps me a lot to deal with my emotions and get my thoughts down. I feel like in the album, there’s elements where I’m sad but the music is quite uplifting, so I’m taking that sad emotion and trying to use it to uplift myself and see things in a clearer way. And there’s definitely elements to the album that are really happy too. I hope people can hear that.

It starts off with this emotion. Before writing any of the lyrics, I’ll find the music that sonically sounds like the way I’m feeling. I’ll find chords that sound like this emotion, or something I’m trying to create. With “As We Bloom” [a track from the album], because there’s no words in this track, I wanted to create this sound of this relationship or friendship blossoming like flowers. I wanted to do that just with music.

I listen to a lot of classical music and film scores; they have to create those emotions and try to represent what’s going on on the screen, or in the literature, with the music. So I try to be inspired by that.

What are you hoping people will get out of the record? The record is generally quite private and intimate.

We all have these emotions. We all get down at times. I’m lucky that I can use music as a healing process. Not everyone can do that. In my head, if I didn’t have music, I wouldn’t know how I would deal with emotions! What I would like for people to get out of the album is to use it in the same way that I do, I guess. And also, just casual listening!

What kind of world are you trying to build with Sun Outside My Window?

It’s just an obsession with the 1800s and Impressionism. I grew up in Wales. My Mum had a lot of Impressionism and Monet paintings around the house growing up. So being there, living in the countryside, having a piano in the house… it’s always been in the background.

So I think I’m trying to create this mix of Classical music and impressionism, but also with this 70s songwriter thing, but done in a modern way.

I also love this idea of Bedroom pop. People have always been “you’re a bedroom pop artist”. At first, my music was a lot more synth-y. But then I had the idea of squashing this full orchestra in my room, and just like urghhh [makes grunting noise], drop it on the bedsprings. I was like: “guys, we can make this work. This is going to be ‘bedroom pop’ it’s got to be recorded here!”

I want to talk about you as a solo artist. Some people might know you from your time in The Orielles and Trudy and the Romance. How has the transition been, from largely contributing to other people’s projects, to finally putting yourself out there in your own right?

I’ve always been writing songs on my own, even when I was in those bands. But as the [solo] project grew bigger, I realised I couldn’t be involved anymore. It felt natural to leave. When I was playing in The Orielles, it never really felt like my music. It was just really fun!

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about it. It just happened quite naturally. It didn’t feel forced that I’d leave the band and pursue this solo career.

So what’s next for you?

I’ve got a couple of dates in London and Manchester. Other than that, write some more music, maybe a collaboration could be on the cards. But I don’t want to say anymore about that…

With that, our conflab came to a tantalising end. During our discussion, it became clear that Strawberry Guy, armed with a unique array of eclectic inspirations, is coming into his own as a musician and songwriter. The success he’s achieved thus far, no matter what he might say, is clearly no mere fluke. ‘Sun Outside My Window’ marks a new chapter in the career of Strawberry Guy, and does more than enough to live up to the hype.

Instagram – @strawberry_guy

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Mrs Magic Strawberry Guy Lyrics

The lyrics of “Mrs. Magic Strawberry Guy” are open to interpretation, as with any artistic creation. However, it seems to convey a sense of whimsy and enchantment. The titular character, Mrs. Magic Strawberry Guy, may represent a figure who brings joy and delight, perhaps through love or creativity. The lyrics paint a vivid picture of a magical realm where anything is possible and where the listener is invited to embark on an imaginative journey. Ultimately, the meaning may vary for each individual, but it undoubtedly aims to evoke a sense of wonder and childlike wonderment.

Charles is a dedicated lyrics provider with a strong passion for music and words. With a profound appreciation for the lyrical artistry of songs, he has channeled his passion into curating and providing accurate lyrics for a wide range of musical compositions. His commitment to preserving the integrity of song lyrics is reflected in his copyright authority, ensuring that the rights of songwriters and artists are respected. Through his work, Charles plays a crucial role in helping music enthusiasts and professionals access and appreciate the essence of songs. By providing authorized and precise lyrics, he not only enriches the music experience but also contributes to the legal and ethical use of songwriting in the industry. Charles is a true advocate for the power of lyrics in music and the importance of protecting intellectual property.

It is a time to let go of the past and make room for new opportunities and personal growth. Some common practices during Yule include lighting candles to symbolize the return of the light, making and exchanging handmade gifts, and gathering around a Yule log to keep the fire burning throughout the night. In addition to these traditional practices, many witches incorporate their own personal rituals and spells into their Yule celebrations.

Some may focus on manifesting abundance and setting intentions for the coming year, while others may perform divination rituals to gain insight into the year ahead. Yule is also a time for community and fellowship. Many witches and pagans gather with family and friends to share a feast and exchange stories and traditions. It is a time to connect with others who share similar beliefs and to honor the interconnectedness of all living things. Overall, Yule is a deeply spiritual and meaningful time for those who practice witchcraft. It is a time to celebrate the changing seasons, honor the cycles of nature, and connect with the divine energy that flows through all things..

Reviews for "Yule Witchcraft: How to Honor and Work with the Elements"

1. Ashley - 2/5 stars - The Yule witchcraft festival was promoted as a grand celebration of magic and enchantment, but it turned out to be a major disappointment. The event lacked organization and coordination, with long lines and confusing directions. The supposed magical activities were underwhelming, with amateurish performances and a lack of authenticity. Overall, I expected so much more from this festival and left feeling disappointed and slightly ripped off.

2. Mark - 1/5 stars - As someone who has always been fascinated by witchcraft, I was excited to attend the Yule witchcraft festival. However, it was a complete letdown. The organizers clearly focused more on the marketing aspect rather than delivering an immersive experience. The workshops were overcrowded and poorly managed, leaving little opportunity for interaction or learning. The vendors' stalls were nothing more than overpriced trinket shops. I would not recommend this festival to anyone looking for an authentic and enjoyable witchcraft experience.

3. Sarah - 2/5 stars - The Yule witchcraft festival fell short of my expectations. The atmosphere was lackluster, and the overall theme felt forced rather than organic. It seemed more like a commercial event rather than a celebration of witchcraft. The performances were uninspiring, and the workshops were basic and lacking in depth. I left feeling unfulfilled and wishing I had explored other options for a true witchcraft experience.

Celebrating the Rebirth and Renewal of the Yule Witchcraft Festival