A tender meditation on love, gratitude, and the quiet richness that comes from having just enough.
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“Shoebox” unfolds as a quiet revelation, an ode to the richness that can only be measured in love, presence, and imagination. For Alice Hale, the artist behind With Sun, the song marks a turning point in understanding what it truly means to live well. “I think we become more imaginative when we have less, as long as our basic needs are met: love, shelter, food,” she reflects. “Not everyone has those and I’m very fortunate that I do.” It’s a statement that hums with gratitude and grounded awareness, and that spirit threads through every note of Shoebox: tender, unadorned, and profoundly human.
With Sun has long been celebrated for her sincerity and understated warmth—a lineage that calls to mind the open-hearted storytelling of Suzanne Vega, Beth Orton, and Carole King. But on Shoebox, Hale moves beyond observation into something more elemental: a meditation on enoughness. The song’s acoustic textures cradle her voice like sunlight through gauze, inviting the listener inward, toward stillness and self-recognition.
The song was born out of contrast. Amid conversations about material success and ambition, Hale found herself cherishing the small, sacred things that anchored her new life as a mother. “When my daughter was born, we had just moved to a small flat and didn’t have much. For a while, the toys my daughter did have were kept in a shoebox,” she recalls. That image—a single shoebox filled with love and wonder—became the song’s emotional compass. It’s a metaphor for creative sufficiency, for how scarcity can expand the imagination rather than limit it.
Influenced by the lyrical depth of Sufjan Stevens and the quiet grace of Feist, Hale’s songwriting offers what BBC curator Tom Robinson once described as “poised perfection.” It’s that poise—never overwrought, always intentional—that has earned With Sun airplay on BBC 6 Music and recognition from tastemakers who know how rare true authenticity sounds.
In Shoebox, Alice Hale doesn’t just tell us to slow down. She shows us how. The song becomes a mirror, reflecting back the truth that the richest lives are often the simplest ones. Through her music, With Sun reminds us that abundance isn’t found in accumulation but in awareness, in the fragile, fleeting beauty of enough.
Now available on all platforms, “Shoebox” is more than a song—it’s a gentle awakening. Listen closely, and you might just hear the quiet heartbeat of what really matters.
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