Tag: Song Premiere

LISTEN: Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters, “The Lion and the Lamb”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters
Hometown: Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles
Song: “The Lion and the Lamb”
Album: The Lion and the Lamb (Digital 45)
Release Date: October 20, 2020
Label: Home Perm Records

In Their Words: “‘The Lion and the Lamb’ draws from Bible stories as an overlay for the situation we find ourselves in today — enveloped in the COVID-19 pandemic, civil unrest/peaceful protests, the rise in domestic terrorist groups in the US, the devastating impacts of climate change/fires that are destroying our communities… things feel hopeless…. While I am not a religious person, I am a spiritual person, and believe the goodness in the hearts of Americans translating into benevolent action is what will heal us as a nation; that ‘savage and cruel beasts’ find their kind and gentle nature, and work to restore of the world to peace and ‘righteousness.’

“This song (with lyrics by Ashleigh Flynn and Virginia Cohen) and the Digital 45 were recorded remotely, with our guitar player Nancy Luca at the helm of arrangement and production from her home studio in LA. She says this about the song, ‘When Ashleigh sent me her song a few months ago, and as we are all locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked hard to bring life to this endeavor despite the distance. The Riveters recorded their parts safe at home on their iPhone or DAWs and I mixed it all in the sonic blender of my session. My hope is that you hear the musical emotion of this wonderful and poignant song. Ready world? It’s ready for you.'” — Ashleigh Flynn

https://soundcloud.com/smashedflynn-1/the-lion-and-the-lamb/s-bI67cGnOGMZ

Photo credit: Kate Flather

LISTEN: Cf Watkins, “White Nights”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Cf Watkins
Hometown: Westfield, North Carolina (Currently in Nashville, Tennessee)
Song: “White Nights”
Album: Babygirl
Release Date: October 16, 2020
Label: Whatever’s Clever Records

In Their Words: “‘White Nights’ is based off of one of my favorite Dostoevsky short stories. On this album, I was trying to explore shifting the way I write music and, in a sense, share myself. I felt a lot of my music was coming from a place of my own longing, unrequited love, and heartbreak. Though I think all of those topics are worthy of our time and attention, I felt, as a woman especially, it was important for me to explore and show my strength as well. I started by simply shifting the focus from myself, and writing songs about something outside of myself. This was one of the first songs to come from that effort. I am singing from the male perspective, who has unrequitedly fallen in love with the female character. There was something very powerful for me to recontextualize romantic longing — to sing the male voice, and to have it honoring the power and magic of a woman.” — Cf Watkins

Photo credit: Griffin Hart Davis

LISTEN: The Honeygoats, “Hummingbird”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: The Honeygoats
Hometown: Plymouth, Wisconsin
Song: “Hummingbird”
Album: Four Years in Three Days
Release Date: October 16, 2020

In Their Words: “’Hummingbird’ was written out of a love for songs that get people dancing and singing along to them the first time they hear them, which makes it great opening track for our album. Upbeat, straight to the chorus, no messing around. It almost sounds innocent enough at first listen, but there’s some innuendo in its theme that gives it some edge when you take a closer listen. The idea was sparked simply by watching some hummingbirds as they buzzed around a feeder one morning, and it turned into a song about a certain type of relationship between two people. Old blues musicians mastered the art of using metaphors to sing about edgy themes in their songs, and that was something that we tried to capture with this.” — Jamie Odekirk, The Honeygoats

Photo credit: Flyover Vigilante

LISTEN: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings, “What Else Was It”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Peter Mulvey with SistaStrings
Hometown: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Song: “What Else Was It”
Album: Live at the Cafe Carpe
Release Date: Oct. 9, 2020
Label: Righteous Babe Records

In Their Words: “‘What Else Was It?’ was a gift, a trance, a song that came straight through me in a time of need. I’ve been alternating two different third verses for years now, and we finally got the other one on record. This might be the best we’ve ever played this song, so I guess we won. What else was it we were looking for, anyway?” — Peter Mulvey

Yellow Couch Management · What Else Was It?

Photo credit: Matt Dayak

LISTEN: Bahamas, “Half Your Love”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Bahamas
Hometown: Living in Halifax, Nova Scotia; from Barrie, Ontario
Song: “Half Your Love”
Album: Sad Hunk
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Brushfire Records

In Their Words: “It’s a love song. Doesn’t the world need another one of those? My first co-write with the massively cool Pat MacLaughlin. Every line in this one feels well-earned and true and like it’s been there for 1000 years. Hope it’s half as good as I think it is.” — Afie Jurvanen

Photo credit: Dave Gillespie

LISTEN: Jeremy Garrett, “The World Keeps Turning Around”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Jeremy Garrett
Hometown: Loveland, Colorado
Song: “The World Keeps Turning Around”
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Organic Records

In Their Words: “These days it just seems like we are going around in circles with many of the conversations we are having — especially online. Someone has a good idea for good change, and then the barrage of disagreements on how to achieve that fires up. When we look at the big picture though, are we all just beating our heads against a brick wall, so to speak? Never realizing how powerful all of us truly loving one another could be? Maybe that message is too simple and naive, but perhaps we need to break it all down, go back to the basics and realize that we are one country, one world. We can’t ever escape that, and when we learn from each other, we would never want to. So the goal of this song for us was to simply ask that question: are we going to keep heading down a path of division over and over and over again? Or can we ask ourselves what we can do to break this cycle?” — Jeremy Garrett

Photo credit: J.Mimna Photography

LISTEN: Woodlock, “Normal”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Woodlock
Hometown: Melbourne, Australia
Song: “Normal”
Album: Collateral EP
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: Nettwerk Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Normal’ a few years ago in Adelaide after a friend came to a show, and we were chatting about relationships. I wasn’t married at the time, but I was thinking about taking the next step. My friend opened my eyes on how marriage, after all the glamour, needs serious work, and how he still loved his partner, but it expressed itself differently over the years. I loved the idea of describing a deep love for someone without saying the word ‘love.'” — Eze Walters, Woodlock

Photo credit: Kane Hibbered

LISTEN: Selena Rosanbalm, “Can You Really Be Gone”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Selena Rosanbalm
Hometown: Austin, Texas
Song: “Can You Really Be Gone”
Album: Selena Rosanbalm
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Label: The Balm Records

In Their Words: “My ex-boyfriend took his own life four and a half years ago, but I still see him all over the place. I thought I saw him driving a van the other day, thought I saw him in a coffee shop. But I was especially struck when I saw a photograph of his niece some months ago; I could see his face so clearly in hers. ‘Can You Really Be Gone’ is about the suspension of reality people often experience after losing a loved one, when the logical mind knows the person is gone, but the emotional mind doesn’t want to give in to that fact.” — Selena Rosanbalm

Photo credit: Daniel Cavazos

LISTEN: Chris Smither, “Caveman”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Chris Smither
Hometown: Amherst, Massachusetts
Song: “Caveman”
Album: More From the Levee
Release Date: October 2, 2020
Label: Signature Sounds

In Their Words: “This is one of those songs that began very innocently, pretending to be a harmless little ditty… then about halfway through it turned on me and showed its teeth, not so much with a snarl, just a simple expression of hunger and a desire to eat me up. I thought it was going to be easy to write, and it was, as long as I thought it was a ‘four stages of man’ kind of theme. But then THE WALL kept climbing into every verse, and things got heavier. Finally it consumed me. This is one of those ‘surprise hits’ in my repertoire. It’s a frequent request. Maybe I’m the only one who’s surprised.” — Chris Smither

Photo credit: Joanna Chattman

LISTEN: Mike McClure, “A Little Bit of Love”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Mike McClure
Hometown: Ada, Oklahoma
Song: “A Little Bit of Love”
Album: Looking Up
Release Date: September 25, 2020
Label: Crow and Gazelle

In Their Words: “Chrislyn Lawrence and I wrote this one together. I had it started, some of the lines in the second verse were from a poem she was working on, then we worked out the chorus together. The past couple of years I’ve worked to let go of things in my life that weren’t doing me any good. As my partner, Chrislyn showed me how letting go is the only way to make room for the things your soul is crying out for — it’s like burning away the driftwood to get down to the essence. ‘Little Bit of Love’ is about what can come from that release: letting certain things die away, so there can be rebirth and ascension. Love, in action, is the only thing I know of that can make that kind of transformation happen.” — Mike McClure

Photo credit: Chrislyn Lawrence