Artist: Chaim Tannenbaum
Hometown: Montreal, Canada
Album: Chaim Tannenbaum
Release Date: May 27
Label: StorySound Records
In Their Words: "The album is about exiles and wanderers … displaced people, discarded people, people removed from their homes, their pasts … about forlorn hopes and abandoned, irretrievable life." — Chaim Tannenbaum
Photo credit: Albie Mitchell
Artist: Corin Raymond
Hometown: Toronto, ON
Song: "Hard on Things"
Album: Hobo Jungle Fever Dreams
Release Date: March 3
Label: Local Rascal Records
In Their Words: "I wrote 'Hard on Things' with Winnipeg songwriter Rob Vaarmeyer, and we had a lot of fun doing it … which is funny because, on the surface of it, it's a bleak message, but it brings a lot of joy to those who recognize themselves in it — me included. To varying degrees, I think we all have these destructive impulses and patterns in our lives that we're trying to figure out. Songs are this very joyful, playful way of making friends with those truths. I mean, 'Hard on Things' is like a children's rhyme for grown-ups. Where else but in songs can ruination be so much fun?" — Corin Raymond
Photo credit: Justin Rutledge
Named for its two members — My Larsdotter, pronounced “me,” from Sweden and Guðbjörg Tómasdóttir, nicknamed “Bubba,” from Iceland — My Bubba's harmony-centric vocals and minimal instrumentation lend the duo a mesmerizing and timeless quality, one that’s as captivating on a stage as it is a street corner. Their latest record, Big Bad Good, capitalizes on their improvisational capabilities with many numbers that were recorded as they were being written, a process that took place in the studio of producer Shahzad Ismaily and expanded into an 11-song gem released last month on the duo’s label, Cash Only. Turns out, My Bubba is informed by — and even distantly connected to — some of folk’s greats.
When did you first realize that making music together was something that was good and that you wanted to pursue?
My: So that happened pretty much the first day we spent together, which was when Bubba moved into my apartment. I had a room to rent in Copenhagen in Denmark about eight years ago. Bubba was unpacking boxes, and I was doing dishes in the kitchen and I was singing to myself at the same time, and she came up and sort of asked me to sing on the song she was writing — to do a harmony or something. I agreed to do that, but I had never really sung with anyone before, never thought about being in a band even, but I [said], "I think I can do that. I’ll try." So we did, and we immediately had such a good time together. We kept doing that basically every time we were home together and had time to spare. We’d sit down on my couch and Bubba would play guitar and we would just harmonize. Most of the time we’d be humming at the beginning, and then we started writing songs together. It was very immediate, and was pretty much our first interaction.
Bubba: I think My covered the grounds. It was immediate and effortless. Even though we were not trained musicians or anything like that, we both had a very strong relationship with music in our own way. When we met, we liked that we could share that very naturally and create our own music. Of course, a lot has happened since then — this was eight years ago. We say that music came and chose us. Opportunities kept coming at us and we would always say yes to them. It took us on a lot of adventures.
I’ve heard a lot about how quickly you recorded these songs after they were written. Did you approach Big, Bad, Good differently during the recording process than any of your previous work?
Bubba: The first few times that you sing a song, ever, when it’s being born, the song always has a very special feel to it … before you’ve rehearsed it, before you find the exact form of a song. We were very intrigued by exploring, let’s say, if we could capture on the record the songs the first few times that they’d become songs. We went into the studio without even having … I mean we had some ideas, some sketches, in our heads, but no finished songs, and we wrote all of the materials as we were recording.
My: So Goes Abroader, the second record — the one before this — we had a very clear idea of what we wanted to sound like as we were writing it and planning the recording sessions. We ended up very close to that, which we were very happy with, of course. With this one, we wanted to challenge ourselves in the writing process by doing it in the studio and we also wanted to, like Bubba was saying, explore that freshness of a song as it’s being written.
It was all kind of because we had met Shahzad [Ismaily], who produced the record. The first time we met him, we had a jam session during a home night in Iceland with some other musicians — Damien Rice and Sam Amidon and [others]. It was a very fun, creative night and we had a connection with [Ismaily] right away. The next time we met him, he told us about his studio that he had just finished and invited us to come make a record with him, and we said we’d love to, but we didn’t have any new material at the time, so maybe later. He said, "No — you don’t have to have songs. Just come over and we’ll see what happens."
We got used to that idea very quickly and decided it was exactly what we wanted to do that that time. It seemed like the perfect challenge, and especially having had that experience with him collaborating creatively in that way, it seemed like the right thing for us to do at the time. It was great, and we’re very happy with the result.
Bubba: Going into the studio, we had no idea what was going to come out. No expectations. We didn’t even know if we were going to come home with a record.
My: All we came with was some kind of confidence, that working with Shahzad was going to lead to something nice.
I loved something you said about your recent video for album track “Charm.” You called it the CliffNotes to your “unauthorized biography,” and I thought that was an interesting way to describe something you wrote. What made you describe it that way?
My: Well, when they asked me to say something about the song and the video and I thought about the lyrics, most of it was a poem that I wrote several years ago that I’d just wanted to be used in a song. That text, I feel, is a condensed version of my experience of being me. At the same time, it’s not written deliberately to be that. I guess that’s the unauthorized part — it’s kind of semi-subconscious poetry.
You could argue that the title track has a biographical element, too. The lyrics about relatives and ancestry lend a lot to the song. Are you inspired by history, family?
Bubba: I have always been really interested in history and my own history and I think, especially at this age, when you’re finally becoming an adult, I feel that I think a lot about where I come from and where my parents come from and try to learn from their journeys. I was inspired by those kinds of feelings, writing that song, in particular … looking back and finding your own place in that chain of stories and deciding how you want to keep building from there, feeling some kind of responsibility and wanting to make something positive and great with your own life.
Another great part of the song is the way it loops and multiplies the harmonies. What inspired that? To me, there are elements there that recall old, old folk songs, gospel songs, hymns — as well as more modern remixes and electronic music. Did that come from any particular place of inspiration?
My: It happened on the spot. We had the chords, the "big, bad, good" part. That was something I had come up with some months earlier, so that’s the part we had. The lyrics we were writing that day, and Shahzad was working out that beat. Once the beat was there, we decided to go in and start singing what came to us. We did that in layer after layer after layer and it became what it is, pretty much, with some editing and adding some things after. But that’s very much how it happened — it’s what came to us instinctively.
I noticed also that you reference other artists in your songs. What made you decide to do that in such an overt way? It feels cliché to ask a musician in an interview, "Tell me about your influences," but you seem to invite a certain amount of comparison with those kinds of lyrics.
My: In "Big Bad Good," we talk about Paul Simon, and that is probably, mostly … I mean, I couldn’t say for sure … I’m interpreting my own lyrics here, but my dad used to sing to me a lot when I grew up. He has a very Simon and Garfunkel-y voice, so it’s really kind of talking about him. Also, we are compared to Simon and Garfunkel, our sound.
Also, Bob Dylan is sort of a relative of mine. [Laughs] Well, we joke about it often when we play live because one of the first songs we played together was Bob Dylan, “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” And we keep playing it, eight, nine years later. So before we play it, I usually say, "Now we’re gonna play a song that was written by my father’s wife’s ex-husband’s mother’s previous lover." [Laughs] And, that is how I’m related to Bob Dylan.
Bubba: We call him Uncle Bob.
My: Yes. We never met him. We’d love to just have him hear our version of the song. I feel like it’s gonna happen someday.
Robbie Fulks is the type of songwriter capable of mining myriad material sources for his work. His life and the lives of those around him are all fair game. On his new release, Upland Stories, the lives of those long gone even come into play. Some of the tales told here date back to 1936, when writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans set out to capture sharecroppers' stories in Alabama, eventually collecting them in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. On other cuts, Fulks reaches into his own history to sketch out in stark relief the often hard-scrabble lives he remembers from growing up in Virginia and North Carolina.
I'm always curious about geography as an artistic factor. You've lived in a few different places in your life — Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, New York. Tell me why Chicago makes sense as a home base for a roots musician.
I came here because I knocked my girlfriend up and her family had a nice place in the suburbs here. Before long, I had knocked another Chicago girl up and just couldn’t leave … old story. Anyway, I quickly found that there was no shortage of clubs and other outlets for musicians in Chicago. I got a job at Old Town School [of Folk Music] teaching, and started playing in little clubs like Holstein's and meeting pickers, and eventually I drifted into Greg Cahill’s band, Special Consensus. Because it’s such a big place with a decent and diverse economy, musicians like me can make it work out in Chicago, even with its disadvantage of not being a music business place. I try to counter the disadvantage by keeping in touch with people who move on to become famous on the coasts, and traveling all over doing shows.
Similarly, you've been a bit of a musical nomad, as well. Will you always come back to your folk-country home base, sooner or later, as you've done on Upland?
Donna and I talk pretty constantly about moving southward, where I fit in better musically and, in some ways, temperamentally, but I doubt it’s really in the cards — at this point, I have a fucking grandson here. Oh, but I think your question means am I, at heart, a folk-country musician? I just call myself country. It’s a big country.
Pretty clever of you to step into James Agee's shoes for some of these stories, particularly considering what's going on in the country currently. How'd that all come together for you?
Brian Yorkey, the playwright, and I were talking about a show to collaborate on and, in going over the themes that crop up over and over in my stuff — like memory and family and hardship and Southernness and so on — [Let Us Now Praise] Famous Men came to mind. I hadn’t read it for a long time and never read it in more than excerpts. I was shocked to find how much it turned me off — the writing was so calculated to annoy the reader, and the boring detail and purple language were too reminiscent of … I don’t know, the covenant-building section of “Exodus.” But the original piece he wrote, rejected by Fortune and decades later republished as “Cotton Tenants,” is sharp and beautiful; and I still admire his talent and accomplishments across a wide swath of genres … and, of course, his dangerous sexy-suicidal charisma, as well.
I wrote seven or eight songs in starting the project, and the three I included on my record felt to fit my voice well, and were just favorites of mine, for whatever reason.
Tying then to now, America is still a very hard religion, wouldn't you say? The more things change and all …
Of course any comparison between the 1930s and now is inexact and, on its face, it may seem ludicrous to suggest that the lives of cotton sharecroppers — which were hardly better than feudal serfs — have any analogue in today’s America. That’s the tough position that song stakes out, if you know, going in, that it’s related to Famous Men.
If you don’t, it simply articulates the harsh life and mindset of a resourceless person whose body hurts from work, who sacrifices children to war, who can’t hope to change his or her prospects, who takes pleasure in a fantasy of being happier after death, and whose stoic complaints are a sort of art form.
What's it take to write a funny song well? And to have them fit into an overall mix with non-funny songs?
I’m not sure a modern music listener accepts the transition on an “album” between funny and solemn. I grew up in an era that did, so it feels natural to me — light and dark, sharp mood swings, relate strongly to lived experience, in my view — but I’ve sometimes gotten the impression that a comic persona spoils the audience for anything else. “Look, that’s Cinderfella who we used to laugh at. Now he’s doing death camp tragedy and helping kids, Jesus Christ.”
My funny song influences are widespread. Stan Freberg, Michael Flanders, Tony Hendra, Bill Carlisle, Sheldon Harnick, Don Bowman, Loudon Wainwright, Cole Porter, Randy Newman, on and on. That list shows the fluidity and breadth of what I think of as funny or as a funny song. Basically, I think the same skills to write that way are the same as to write any song; but the instinct for the laugh-getting … who knows? As Steve Martin says, “If you put a slice of baloney in each of your shoes, you feel funny.”
Having done a few cover tunes along the way, what do you look for in a song? Something you don't think you could come close to writing? Some phrase that slays you?
I did Merle Kilgore’s great and moving song “Baby Rocked Her Dolly” on Upland Stories. iI strikes me as something I could have written myself, almost, but has a little something that’s beyond me or, perhaps, outside of me. The songs written by others that infect me, so to speak, to the point where I want to make a record of them and then sing them 200 times afterward in performance, a lot of them probably have that quality — they fit my voice, but there’s some feature that’s outside my bailiwick enough as to compel my admiration or envy. But, ultimately, songs infect a writer for the same reason as they do a non-writer: A good song makes you want to own it.
You did some time on Music Row. If creativity is alive and, mythologically speaking, associated with a muse or goddess, is there a way for formula writing to be something more than empty and soul-less?
I don’t think anyone alive would call himself a formula writer, but those writers that focus on a market and learn what it takes to satisfy it and bang the bell again and again, those people have their place. In the olden times, the industry seemed to offer more rewards to the popular music writers who were both commercially and artistically motivated, such as Chuck Berry, the Bryants, Lennon and McCartney, Carole King, Willie Dixon, Harlan Howard … people these days that are that talented are either in littler niches or get their gravy from film, TV, theater … something other than product geared for radio-driven sales. All my impression. I really don’t know much about it.
In my Music Row years, there were publishers who were very sensitive and smart sounding boards and constructive editors (not mine, alas, but still). But I'd guess that, as the commercial musical sphere has gotten stodgier and simpler and shoddier, these people have grown even rarer.
With all that you've done and seen throughout your career, is there any moment you'd like to go back to and relive or re-do?
Every single one of them!
Photo credit: Andy Goodwin
Ah, record shopping … There's nothing quite like the thrill of sifting through crates of old vinyl and finding a hidden gem — except, of course, the thrill of shopping on Record Store Day. A vinyl lover's Christmas, each Record Store Day brings with it tons of new and exclusive releases. We like to approach Record Store Day with a plan of action, because nabbing the coolest new picture disc or the most sought-after reissue — while certainly rewarding — isn't a task for the faint of heart.
To help you plan your own Record Store Day 2016, check out our list of all the rad new releases we're hoping to snag, ideally at one of our favorite independent record shops. And for a comprehensive list of what's available on Record Store Day (and to find an independent record store near you), click here.
Buddy Guy and Junior Wells, The Criteria Sessions (Rhino)
The second offering from Rhino's Play the Blues, this LP, limited to 3,500 pieces, features two of our greatest bluesmen together on songs like "Tears, Tears, Tears" and "Sweet Home Chicago."
Johnny Cash, All Aboard the Blue Train with Johnny Cash (ORG Music)
This 1962 Johnny Cash album has been out of print for years now, but is making its return with a 3,000-piece blue vinyl run.
Brandi Carlile, Live at KCRW 'Morning Becomes Eclectic' (ATO Records)
A 2,500-piece Record Store Day Exclusive, this six-song live EP from Brandi Carlile features performances of "The Things I Regret" and "The Eye."
Brandy Clark/Sheryl Crow, "Girl Next Door"/"Homecoming Queen" (Warner Bros.)
On this limited-to-3,000 colored (You get red, blue, or yellow … it's a surprise!) 7-inch, you not only get two tunes from Nashville darling Brandy Clark, but also Crow's take on Clark's song "Homecoming Queen."
Shawn Colvin & Steve Earle, "Wake Up Little Susie"/"Baby's In Black" (Fantasy)
Two covers from two master songwriters make it onto the 2,000 copies of this 7-inch, which features Colvin and Earle duetting on the Everly Brothers' "Wake Up Little Susie" and the Be
Bob Dylan, "Melancholy Mood" (Columbia)
Unless you caught Dylan on his recent Japanese tour, this is your first chance to snag one of these beauties — red vinyl EPs featuring four tracks from Dylan's upcoming album, Fallen Angels.
Jay Farrar, Sebastopol/thirdshiftgrottoslack (Transmit Sound)
This is a must-have for Jay Farrar fans (and it's limited to 1,000 pieces, so get in line early). It's the first time Farrar's Sebastopol has been pressed to vinyl, and also includes a five-song EP.
Emmylou Harris, Wrecking Ball Deluxe Vinyl Version (Nonesuch)
A deluxe version of a fantastic Emmylou Harris album? Sounds like reason enough to try and snag one of the 5,000 three-LP sets.
Kid Millions, Beyond The Confession: Kid Millions Reworks Harry Taussig (Tompkins Square)
You've never heard primitive guitar music like this, reimagined and remixed by drummer Kid Millions.
Langhorne Slim & the Law, Live at Grimey's (Dualtone Music)
We love Langhorne Slim and we love Nashville's famed independent record store Grimey's, so we sure hope we snag one of the 1,500 copies of this eight-song live album.
Madisen Ward & the Mama Bear, Live at Grimey's (Glassnote)
More Grimey's! Madisen Ward & the Mama Bear! If you didn't make their in-store performance (or if you did and want to relive it), you can listen to it anytime you'd like if you grab one of these 1,500 EPs.
Jason Molina, The Townes Van Zandt Covers (Secretly Canadian)
Jason Molina and Townes Van Zandt aren't often mentioned in the same breath, but this two-song EP, limited to 3,500 copies, proves maybe that shouldn't be the case.
Graham Nash, This Path Tonight (Blue Castle Records)
Our Artist of the Month is releasing a deluxe version of his new album on Record Store Day, complete with bonus 7-inch.
Elvis Presley, I'm Leaving: Elvis Folk-Country (Legacy)
Culled from RCA Studio B sessions held between 1966 and 1973, this limited edition LP features 12 of Elvis's greatest contributions to country and folk.
The Rough Guide to Unsung Heroes of Country Blues (World Music Network)
Whether you're a longtime blues fan or looking to learn more about the genre, this limited edition compilation — complete with a digital download card — doesn't disappoint.
Various Artists, The Other Side of Sun: Sun Records Curated by RSD, Volume 3 (ORG Music)
In the third offering of Sun Records Curated by Record Store Day, we get a taste of some lesser-known recordings from the famed label, including tunes from Betty LaVette and Soul Suspects.
Muddy Waters, Hoochie Coochie Man– Live at the Rising Sun Celebrity Jazz Club (Justin Time)
Muddy Waters had one of the greatest backing bands around, and this two-LP live set — pressed on colored vinyl and limited to 2,000 pieces — is an amazing document of an amazing group of musicians.
Lucinda Williams, Just a Little More Faith and Grace (Highway 20)
Get some alternate takes from Lucinda Williams' excellent new album The Ghosts of Highway 20 on this three-song EP, limited to 3,000 copies.
Lede photo via Marc Wathieu via Foter.com / CC BY
Artist: Etta Baker
Hometown: Morganton, NC
Album: Railroad Bill
Release Date: February 19
Label: Music Maker Recordings
In Their Words: "Possessing a stunning beauty, Etta's husband refused to let her travel and perform away from home. She never stopped playing music! This gracious grandmother was the source of a great deal of joy and surprise when I found out that she still played guitar after I heard her early recordings in the '60s. One of the signature chords of my guitar vocabulary comes from her version of 'Railroad Bill.' This was the first guitar picking style I ever learned." — Taj Mahal
Pretty much every singer/songwriter today counts Joni Mitchell among their heroes. If they don't, they should. From her 1968 debut to her 2007 finale, Mitchell's talent has been both steadfast and elusive — remaining constant even as it evolved. Her early records (Blue, Clouds, Ladies of the Canyon, Court & Spark) showcased a craft so fully formed and so emotionally mature that they continue to stand as high marks in her career … if not in music as a whole.
By the mid-'70s, Mitchell needed more than acoustic music could offer and she branched out into jazz alongside Charles Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, Wayne Shorter, and other legends of the form. Having issued 10 studio albums in 11 years, Mitchell's output slowed in the '80s and '90s, with only six releases spread across those 20 years, including the Grammy-winning Turbulent Indigo in 1994. At the turn of the century, Mitchell won another Grammy for Both Sides Now, the concept album that follows the arc of a relationship as told through jazz songs performed by Mitchell with an orchestra. Two years later, Travelogue paired her own songs with an orchestra and, in 2007, Shine shone as her last-released collection of original material prior to her retirement from music.
As one of the singer/songwriters who count Mitchell as a hero, Jill Andrews found inspiration in her early acoustic albums. That influence wasn't exactly obvious on Andrews' first band project, the everybodyfields, or even on her solo sets, including her latest release, The War Inside. But it's in there, in her DNA, just as it is in all the other singer/songwriters who have come along over the past 45 years.
So that I know who I'm dealing with here … what's your favorite Joni record? This is going to determine a lot.
Blue. I feel like that's the most obvious one, but … There are several that I hadn't really listened to, so I've been listening to them. And, still, that's my favorite … by far, I would say. But I think Ladies of the Canyon is really good, too. What about you?
Early on, in my early 20s, I was all about Clouds . I mean, Blue is fantastic. No question. But, like you said, it's the obvious one. Then Court & Spark got me, particularly after … I'm guessing you've seen the wonderful documentary about her on Netflix.
No, I haven't, actually.
Oh my goodness. It's called Woman of Heart and Mind. I watched that a couple of years ago and listened to Court & Spark for about two weeks straight … nothing else.
Oh, nice! Is it a documentary about her whole life of just that era?
Her whole life. What's fascinating to me about her is that the music industry never knew quite what to do with her … and that's true of most artists who color outside the lines. It's amazing that their art ever gets documented and distributed.
Yeah. And she did so well, record sale-wise, for a really long time. The ones, to me, that weren't the most obvious still sold so well. And it's interesting to think that, if she were trying to do what she did in the '70s now, I wonder how different of an experience that would be for her.
Starting in 1968, when she was 24, she made nine albums in 11 years.
That is insane!
Clouds at 25 and Blue at 27. Today, artists that age are sitting naked on wrecking balls to get attention.
When you think about that, that is so true! [Laughs] Have you seen the live BBC videos she did in 1970?
Yeah, some of them.
She's wearing this pink dress and her skin is the most flawless skin I've ever seen in my life. I can't even believe how flawless it is. You know there was nothing making her look better, except maybe a little makeup … but she barely had any makeup on. She was just singing and playing guitar. She didn't need a single other thing. It was just her doing that and it was so good. It was songs from Ladies of the Canyon and some songs from Blue. It's just so simple.
It's tempting to wonder where the Joni Mitchell of this or that generation is, but really, the original is perfect and timeless. Do we need another one?
I mean … not really, but at the same time … I'm interested in the simplicity of all of that. It's actually caused me to think a lot because I've been thinking about what my next record is going to be. I'm so over the moon about this new one that came out, but I finished it a while back, so I've been thinking about my next one for a while. I've been working on a couple of things at home and a lot of it is pretty simple … a lot of my vocals stacked up, one on top of another, used as another instrument. I don't know … it's not necessarily as simplistic as just a guitar and vocal, but it's definitely more simple for me.
Well, the setting that she used was simple, but her phrasing, melodies, lyrics … all of that was very complex. That kind of talent can't really be learned, but have you spent time really studying the craft of her songs?
In high school, I definitely listened to a lot of her stuff. That was before I was a musician, really. I didn't play an instrument. I remember, specifically, when I was dreaming about being a musician, that I wanted to be like her. The reason I wanted to be like her was that I wanted to be able to play an instrument really well. I wanted to be able to sing really well. And I wanted to be able to write my own songs. That was the triad for me.
So you might as well aim for the absolute highest! [Laughs]
[Laughs] Yeah. Exactly. I guess I haven't really studied her craft, necessarily. But I have listened to her stuff a lot and just been a big fan. Her lyrics are so interesting. In general, they're all slice-of-life lyrics. You can see her in the story, almost every time — standing on a street corner in “For Free.” You can see her in so many of the songs. I just love that. The imagery is so beautiful.
Not that she ever made pure folk music, but that's just too small of a genre to contain her, so it's no wonder she gravitated toward the complexity of jazz. Are you a fan of that phase, as well?
I've listened to some of that stuff, but I wasn't as drawn to it, to be honest. I've listened to Court & Spark. I've listened to Hissing of Summer Lawns. I wasn't particularly drawn to either of those records, but I do really like Hejira.
Interesting …
Yeah. I don't know what it is. I think the melodies drew me in more, on Hejira. I love “Coyote” so much. That song is amazing.
Nova Scotian singer/songwriter David Myles has an interesting palette of musical colors from which he paints. On one cut, he brings the folky finesse of James Taylor. On the next, he'll turn to the cool jazz of Chet Baker. On still another, he might inject the raucous rock of Chuck Berry. Add on a political science degree and some fluency in Chinese, and the combination is what has turned Myles into an award-winning artist in his homeland.
Down here in the States, Myles makes his debut on September 25 with So Far. It's a collection of songs culled from his catalog, deconstructed and built anew. That sort of shape-shifting is what makes Myles so popular. In fact, his 2013 "Inner Ninja" collaboration with hip-hop artist Classified is the best-selling rap single in Canadian music history. So Far doesn't go quite, well, that far. One track, “When It Comes My Turn,” is about as far away from rap as you can get.
"I often say that 'When It Comes My Turn' was written during my quarter-life crisis,” Myles says. “I was on a really slow bus through Alberta. I was feeling old — feeling like I was turning the corner into adulthood, settling into the next stage of life. So I was thinking, if I'm gonna be an adult, I want to do it right. I don't want to go down a path of cynicism and unhappiness that can so easily happen as life wears on. So I wrote myself this little memo. And it became the song. Now I sing it at shows every night. It reminds me to stay focused on the important stuff. Now I can't become that old cynical grump I may have one day become.”
Myles continues, “The other interesting part of the song is that, though I thought it would be mainly 20-somethings going through quarter-life crises in mind that would feel a connection with the song, it's resonated most significantly with my parent's generation. Those who are transitioning into retirement or the later stages of life have really grabbed on to this song, and I'm so happy about that. Shows you that the word 'old' is such a perfectly relative term. It's all in how you think of it."
Photo by Riley Smith
