Artist:Gwen Levey and the Breakdown Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Barefoot and Pregnant” Album:Not the Girl Next Door EP Release Date: November 3, 2023
In Their Words: “RIP Roe V Wade. That was such a dark day. It’s a very personal issue for me and most women. I was a child who was sexually assaulted. So, everything that’s been happening hit me really hard, especially here in Tennessee, which has the strictest abortion ban. That, even if you’re a child, you can’t get help for anything like that. The song has a serious social commentary, but I wanted it to still be fun so it’s more accessible. You have to be brave to sing that in the south.
“This song is for all the freedom-lovin’, democracy-lovin’, country music-lovin’ people out there who want to help women win back their Reproductive Rights!” – Gwen Levey
Artist:Katie Curley Hometown: Brooklyn, New York; originally from Home, Washington Song: “Lucky In Love” Album:Penny For My Heartbreak Release Date: September 8, 2023
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Lucky In Love’ while driving through Kansas with my husband and bandmate, guitarist Brendan Curley. Actually, he was driving, and I was listening to the Rolling Stones on the car stereo and watching the flat roll by. By the time we got to St. Louis, I had everything but the second verse. I’m incredibly honored that Mary Lee Kortes agreed to sing harmonies for this song on the album. Blue Betty, the ’79 baby blue Ford pickup in the video, was a dream to drive and her owners are also lovely people. I borrowed Brendan’s guitar and cowboy hat to add a bit of a magical element to the storyline, and I think it works well with director Michael Bartolomeo’s quirky, cool style.” – Katie Curley
In Their Words: “This song seems to have fallen out of the sky. Tommy and I were really inspired by the show ‘Daisy Jones & the Six.’ It made us want to tap into our rock roots a bit. Tommy wrote the music in his head one night when he was falling asleep. He actually imagined it written out in notation so he would be able to remember it in the morning. When he played it for me, it was just a musical idea, chords and melody. I tweaked it a bit and tried to discern what the chords made me feel so I could find a lyrical direction, which was an interesting process, because usually for me, lyrics always come first. What came out was kind of a battle cry, for all who fight a war with anxiety and depression.
“We know how important it is not to bottle things up, but what happens once we’ve let it out? I think the song is asking if we can process all our feelings in a healthy way and move on, rather than sitting in our sadness. The song ended up being the perfect title track, because not only are we expressing some really vulnerable emotions, we’re also literally ‘letting out’ a lot of previously unreleased songs and pulling back the curtain a bit on mine and Tommy’s story, which has always been at the center of our music, though we have been hesitant to draw attention to it before now. And in giving ourselves the freedom to let it out, we feel we’re being more true to our authentic selves, musically and personally, and it just feels right.” – Noah Wall
Artist:Tom Heyman Hometown: San Francisco, California Song: “The Mission Is On Fire” Album:24th Street Blues Release Date: October 6, 2023 Label: Bohemian Neglect Recording Works
In Their Words: “I have lived on the Eastern end of 24th Street in San Francisco’s Mission District around the corner from SF General Hospital for more than 20 years now. I work at a bar near the corner of Mission and 22nd Street and a number of years ago (pre-pandemic), there were a series of devastating fires on Mission Street — two of them practically next door to my workplace, and another about three quarters of a mile south at 29th Street. Fires in a densely-populated city full of attached wooden houses are scary enough, but add in the scarcity of affordable housing, the simmering resentments around the huge influx of tech workers, and the white-hot real estate market and the overall effect was pretty unsettling.
“The phrase, ‘The Mission is on fire’ popped into my head and I knew there was a song there. I chased it down until I thought I had it. Around the time that I wrote it, I had another record coming out that it wasn’t really right for, but I knew that it was going to fit squarely into the group of songs that made up my new record, 24th Street Blues. It seems that San Francisco is in the news often these days and is struggling with all the things that an awful lot of cities are struggling with, but I deeply love my neighborhood – and most days I find it difficult to imagine living anywhere else.” – Tom Heyman
Artist:Nicolette & The Nobodies Hometown: Guelph, Ontario, Canada Song: “Rodeo” Release Date: August 24, 2023 Label: Art Haus
In Their Words: “I gave up on being a musician a long time ago. I let some negative thoughts knock me down and keep me down. That if I wasn’t good enough then, I’d never be. ‘Rodeo,’ the song and video, is about how I got back up again. The night I walked into that karaoke, sang some songs and met my band – that was the first step to bringing me back to doing something I truly loved.” – Nicolette Hoang
Artist:Barbaro Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota Song: “Gardens” Album:About the Winter Release Date: October 20, 2023 Label: StorySound Records
In Their Words: “This tune is one of those that was written quite easily in one sitting, but took the band a while to finalize it. Looking back at voice memos, we started working on this one about three years ago. There was a clear vision for the composition, but took us a little to realize how each instrument can be used to accomplish it. The goal for the song was to be a long crescendo from start to finish. It starts with just guitar, then adds bass, then adds a simple counter melody on the banjo, then fiddle, etc. We like to think of it like building with Lego blocks, every six bars you add a new piece, a new color, until a nice little mosaic presents itself. It’s a really simple song, same three chords looping over and over again, the same melody plays following every verse. Because of this, the goal was to change the way these parts were played every go around, whether playing muted, more percussive, or playing each note with more sustain.” – Barbaro
Artist:Arny Margret Hometown: Ísafjörður, Iceland Song: “waiting” Album:dinner alone EP Release Date: September 22, 2023 (EP) Label: One Little Independent Records
In Their Words: “Sometimes you feel like you’re waiting for someone, or for a moment to say something, but the person doesn’t really see or give you the time. This song is about a lot of things: feeling left out and alone, feeling unheard and unwanted. It’s a song that was scary for me to write. Like most of my newer songs, I feel like I’m starting to write in a bit of a different way, a more honest way. This song is all the things I would never say out loud to anyone, I’m not using any metaphors or trying to mask anything here. That’s a pretty scary thing to do to, at least for me.” – Arny Margret
Artist:High Fidelity Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “The Mighty Name of Jesus” Album:Music In My Soul Release Date: September 15, 2023 Label: Rebel Records
In Their Words: “‘The Mighty Name of Jesus’ is an incredibly special song to me. It came to me at a time in my life when I was struggling with mysterious health issues, and all I had to get me through was my faith in the Lord. Early one morning, I woke up with it playing in my head like a recording. I knew I could easily fall right back asleep, and I actually started to, but I thought, ‘I better just grab my phone to record this.’ I was so sleepy that I actually forgot that it existed for a few days! When I finally remembered something about it and listened to the voice memo, I was a bit in shock. It was like listening to a song for the first time, only it was me singing it! I had gotten three verses and two distinct choruses that morning. As I wrote out the words, the fourth verse came to me, so I wrote it out, too. I could talk on and on about the amazing things with this song. I hope it is an incredible blessing to everyone who hears it!
“Much like the making of this song, there are so many special things I could talk about in the making of this video! Location after location fell through right up until the morning of the video shoot when the weather threatened to rain on our only day available for shooting. Love Circle was a location that came to me while desperately praying for ideas and direction, and it turned out to be absolutely amazing. The unique weather that day combined with our videographer Warren Swann’s artistic touch created an indescribable texture quality to this video that almost feels like Technicolor. It’s hard to believe that this is the first video High Fidelity has shot in our hometown of Nashville proper. The city has changed so much through the years, but we still love and care deeply for it. To be able to perform this song of healing and deliverance right there in our hometown with our beautiful city skyline behind us was beyond special. As the ‘songwriter,’ I feel so incredibly blessed to have received a song like this and to get to perform it with High Fidelity — I hope it can be a blessing and encouragement!” ̶ Corrina Rose Logston Stephens
Artist:Birds of Play Hometown: Telluride, Colorado Song: “Breathe” Album:Birdsongs of the American West Release Date: August 25, 2023
In Their Words: “‘Breathe’ was written as a response to witnessing my wife navigate a somewhat tumultuous time, rife with hard questions about meaning and purpose and her place in life. I was also wrestling with some of the same sentiments at the time and wrote this song as a friendly reminder to us both of the impermanence of all of our states and experiences and how much agency we have to reground with a simple breath. We worked this song up specifically for this album as it was one of the only songs in this group that we hadn’t played before recording Birdsongs of the American West. We’ve only started to play this live during our most recent tour around the PNW and it’s been really moving to see how deeply it’s resonating with our audiences.” – Alex Paul
Artist:Rachel Gore Hometown: Wilmington, North Carolina Song: “Good Death” Album:Forgotten Woman of Folk Release Date: August 11, 2023 (single); October 6, 2023 (EP)
In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Good Death’ in the midst of dealing with a lot of anxiety – specifically surrounding death. I feel like it’s a topic that’s not normally discussed openly, so I wanted to write a song that took that fear and made it into something really beautiful. I recorded the song with Americana artist and producer Sarah Peacock, who transformed it into something beyond what I could have ever imagined.
“Much of ‘Good Death’ and the upcoming EP surrounds spirituality and Southern upbringing, so I knew for the video that I wanted to find some really beautiful old churches in the country. I brought this idea to the director, Corbin Eaton, who just blew it out of the water. We spent a day roaming around rural Tennessee finding the most incredible historical chapels, and we even got invited to record inside the last one we were filming. I’m so thrilled to share this song with the world, and I hope there are people who feel like ‘Good Death’ is exactly what they’ve needed to hear.” – Rachel Gore
Photo Credit: Corbin Eaton
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