I have wanted to write about the people who owned our old farmhouse before, but I couldn’t realize the song, which more and more seemed to want to talk about some essence of their moving on, not their past. Reaching into the past, I am able to salvage: The dim farmhouse, morning radio on … Black-blue meadow …
Tag: art
strange and familiar
There’s something deeply satisfying about writing songs without being hemmed in by expectations of a specific linear form or any particular idiom of music. Yet it isn’t as simple as “out with the old, in with the new.” Here lies the beauty, complexity and excitement of songwriting: Making up something that bears identifiable traces of its roots yet stays unmistakably my own … writing a song that …
unwanted things
There is no burden like unwanted things. Which is sad because, against all real evidence, things have feelings too. They don’t love in the human way, still: That blue thrift shop sweater out at the elbows has a story. I try to imagine the places it has been, and who wore it before it was mine. Those rundown cowboy boots slouched in the closet talk in …
a little faith
Some days I'm certain those who don't have faith know one thing more than me. Most days, one thing less. Faith is the way to get where you're going as an artist. Without faith, the leap to greater art never works. I don't pretend to know how a new song comes into my life out of nowhere. I don't want to …
shameless
My songs are unapologetically intimate and unfailingly hushed. To me, quiet, sparse and unadorned just feels right. My recordings and live performances, too, a ritual of simplicity. I want you, the listener, to feel each heartbeat in the wake of every heartache. It’s what I’m about. That margin has always been mine, and I have never let what’s happening in the mainstream …
beautiful flaws
I am so flawed as an artist. My songs are imperfectly performed. My wispy voice is sometimes shaky about pitch. My recordings are a set of first-takes, a thoroughly homemade affair. Nothing feels mastered. Listen closely, and you might hear barn swallows, the sound of wood scraping on a floor, probably a chair. I don’t have many true fans. Is …
days
There are days when everything is gut, and the song I’m making up seems to know exactly where it wants to go. On those days, the heart begs the mind to stay away.
ache, and art
One of the remarkable things about being a musician is that there are no rules. There’s no right way or wrong way to be one. You can experiment with every aspect of making up a song, and there’s no one way to listen to it. But I do follow one rule: to honor the difference …
ancient thing
I am so blessed to have discovered this dignified, ancient, elegant thing, making up songs. And to know that every day my heart moves in its little sideways thrust, this is the thing I will do. Photo by Jessica
audible
Sometimes words are just music themselves. Like “Strawberry” is a very musical sounding word to me. "Dandelion" is another. I like "Honeysuckle" and "Hurricane," too. And "Hallelujah." Standing on the edge of the vowel forest, I also encounter: A blossoming almond tree. The thicket grown loud with nightingales. Skin and heart. Bed. House. Heartbreak (and with it, the tentative hope for …
