I once dated
a girl in a band who asked me why I make music. I told
her I do it because I feel like it’s what I’m
supposed to do. She said that wasn't a good reason.
But it’s the truth.
So I continue to justify that, and explore exactly what
that looks like. My first effort at high fidelity recording
came with my last album, “Catch the Brass Ring".
Where I wanted to capture the intimacy of my first EP
(which was made in a bedroom), while exploring more
adventurous productions. I learned so much from the
engineers and recording process,that I decided to try
it on my own again.
Now my house is a recording studio. My world is made
rich by capturing my own sounds as well as the sounds
of my friends, and I feel as though I’ve only
just begun to scratch the surface. It reminds me of
being a kid in Nashville where my uncle owned a studio
and devoted himself to making country music records.
I met Dolly Parton there once. It made me acutely aware
that I had no instruments in my house. My father was
a salesman and my mother studied psychology. Fortunately,
though, a tutor of mine was a bit of a hippie so I played
her guitar sometimes.
It’s been a wonderful journey, getting back home.
After touring “Catch the Brass Ring” in
the US, the UK and Scandinavia (and scoring a film),
I realized that a few years had gone by and I wanted
to be singing new songs. So I went to Sweden and stayed
in a one room apartment, with the smallest stove I've
ever seen. I thought a new environment would yield all
kinds of ideas, but I didn't write a single song there.
Actually, it feels like I barely spoke a word the entire
time.
Eventually, I went back to Tennessee to hang around
the train tracks near where I grew up. I ordered some
microphones from Germany and wrote songs about antique
shops and horse races. A friend of mine has a truck
and some land out by the Cumberland River. We swim there
and sink our feet into the deep mud of the river bed.
I also sit in my front yard looking at the chipmunks
and crows that hang around. Once a squirrel fell from
a power line and lay on the street getting a little
flatter each day, until the rain washed him away. And
so that's what the album is about, I suppose. It's an
intricate and emotional meditation on being alive.
I’m always waiting for an idea. Songs show up
in all kinds of places. Someone sent me a box of old
family letters from WWII. The sense of desperation was
so poignant in the faded cursive hand. I did my best
to paste together a story from the pieces I found and
ended up with “Dear Corinne”. It’s
about a man clinging to life, and working desperately
for pennies to send back to his love, who seems to have
moved on without him.
I found the idea for the first single, “Harry
and Bess”, after staring at a Harry Houdini poster
in a mixing session for a few days. The story encapsulates
the heartbreaking romance between Houdini and his wife,
Bess. It’s been said that in 1904 an English locksmith
spent seven years developing a pair of cuffs that Houdini
could not escape. Thousands of people showed up to watch
the challenge, which was hosted by the London Daily
Mirror. Houdini struggled for over an hour, only to
escape after his wife approached him, offering a kiss
on the lips. Some claim Bess begged the Mirror for the
key, and passed it to Harry in the kiss.
I named the album “The Jack of Hearts” because
love doesn't usually turn out quite as romantically
for me.
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