Don't Give, Up Don't Die

and Not Knowing How it Would Go

November is my favorite month for a variety of reasons. One of them is the weather here on the California Central Coast, where we don’t have traditional seasons, more like ‘fall’ or ‘not fall’, and November is the time of the transition. Sweater time.

A Book I Loved

I finished this a few months ago, but I realized I never wrote about in the substack. I’ll read pretty much any music bio, whether I care about the subject’s music or not, and I’ve read tons of them, but none like this book:

Reading it felt like watching all the extra, unused footage of a music documentary- the hanging out in hotel rooms, vans, bars, the fucking around, just goofin’. Revealing a beautiful side of Vic Chesnutt, that’s hinted at in his songs, but hidden behind layers. It’s tragic, knowing the end, but it’s also an inspiring statement about survival, and making art, and friendh. I can’t recommend it enough.

New Song: ‘How it Would Go’

I wrote the first draft of the song during Scott McMicken’s school of song class all the back in January of 2023. I think his prompt was to write a song about the moon, and hey, you don’t got tell me twice Scotty. I love writing songs about that big ol’ thing. So I wrote three different songs, and this was the one that I shared with a small group of fellow songwriters. The first verse was about taking the bus from Santiago, Chile, to Mendoza, Argentina, over the Andes, and leaving so early in the morning that I could still see the moon in the sky. Kind of a cool image, but I hated the melody and couldn’t fit the words into a way I felt comfortable singing. Honestly, probably would have scrapped the whole song, but I got a lot of positive feedback about the chorus during the song share, and sometimes that’s all you need to stick with something. So I rewrote the verses completely, (bye bye moon) trying to keep the same spirit of the original, remembering how it felt to drive long distances- on tour with the band, or just for the adventure.

The original form of the song was also a (very rudimentary) drum-machine / synth kind of thing. I wanted to a do a krautrock/ Hallogallo type thing in the verses combined with the chorus hook. The final song ended up way more straight forward Americana and more in my comfort zone, but still fun to play. Kirk MacLane, Alex Nash and I tracked the basic rhythm and lead vocals together live at Middle Ridge Studios with Cian Hamilton in January of last year. It was one of the more tricky songs, despite its simplicity, because we really wanted to lock in rhymically. This was a challenge for me, specifically, because I can sometimes be so comfortable playing my own songs that I can get a bit loosey-goosey (and otherwise silly goosey). Kirk and Alex are incredible musicians, both technically and vibe-wise, and they are great together as a rhythm section. To nail the song, I had to actually focus and listen, and to be totally mindful and present. This felt amazing. Playing music is cool, guys.

The rest of the song was mostly fleshed out by Adam Nash, who added so much to arrangement of the song, playing the pedal steel and all the electric guitars. His rhythm part really added a lot to the verses, and his pedal steel is always beautiful and expressive. I cannot say enough about Adam as a producer and arranger. I’ve been a fan of his work for a long time, and played live with him a few times, but it was really fun to have him on a recording and hear what he came up with. I sometimes have a push/pull with the alt-country stuff as an influence, but I think leaning into it was right for this song. We added a little background vocals in the chorus and I did a little wooshing thing on the Juno as nod to my original conception of the song, and Cian mixed the whole thing beautifully.

Anyways, check it out if you want.