Anna Harrell has come a long way: from writing her very first song on a pink piece of craft paper with a purple marker at eight years old, to now being a junior in the Thornton School of Music, getting ready to release her first EP as an adult songwriter. 

After spending her first semester abroad in Paris, Harrell, a junior majoring in music industry, said it was difficult to break into the music scene at USC. She said it was a summertime gig that brought her closer with several classmates who she has continued to play live with since. 

Currently, Harrell said she focuses her songwriting on “childhood,” using metaphors and memories to create a “dreaminess” that encompasses how people remember early years of their lives.

“I have a song called ‘Red Balloon,’ about accidentally letting go of a balloon and then watching it fly away. … That is something that most people can hopefully remember from a child-like perspective, feeling so helpless,” Harrell said. “How beautiful that a metaphor can feel so simple and so whimsical, but also so hopefully deep in a lot of ways.”

Harrell said writing with other people is an important part of her songwriting process, with her own music usually existing within the “pop-rooted, alternative, indie-leaning” genres. She also works on other artists’ projects as a collaborator, whether their work is within her regular writing genres or not, having experimented with funk and “K-pop-leaning” writing.

“Since I was little, I’ve always had very clear dialogue in my head, I can hear people talking,” Harrell said. “When I’m writing with other people, that’s a really important element, because I try to kind of hear their voice instead of mine, and then write through that voice.”

Sage Petrocelli, a junior majoring in music production, has produced songs they wrote together, and Petrocelli and Harrell perform together frequently.

“[Most recently], she asked me to come up with some interesting, ambient synth parts for her songs, which was something I hadn’t done before,” Petrocelli said. “Something I really love about her [is that] she’s always willing to try new things in her performances. It’s kind of free — she comes and sings with me, and I go and sing with her.”

Another collaborator of Harrell’s, Ryann Barnes, is a junior majoring in music industry at UCLA, but despite the focus of her studies, she said she is more drawn to the creative side of music. According to Barnes, the two have a “friends-first” relationship where writing music together is a fun activity rather than an obligation.

“Sometimes we’ll hang out under the pretenses of, ‘Oh, let’s write something today.’ [But] oftentimes we’re just already hanging out,” Barnes said. “One of the reasons I love writing with Anna is we kind of just write similarly. … The whole time we’re just bouncing ideas, everything that you think of is written down on the page, [which] allows for more ideas to happen.”

In 2026, Harrell plans to release an EP that she has been working on for the past year. Harrell said she has not stopped writing music during the production process. 

“Some songs are in different places than others. Some are getting mastered, and some are still split open on the operating table,” Harrell said. “I’m hopefully gonna release some singles in the next few months, which will be fun. And then I’ve got a lot of new music that I kind of have to organize in a way that makes sense in my brain.”

Songs Harrell has played in her live performances are expected to be released throughout the year, including “Red Balloon,” “Pink” and “Apple Seeds.” She has been working on not only the creative side of her work, but the production as well.

“Learning how to produce and learning what sounds I like has led me to better understand my own music in a way that I feel like even two years ago I had a much different grasp on,” Harrell said. “I hope to just continue to learn. I think learning and trying new things is my favorite thing in the whole world.”