Road to Road Trip.
If you've been following me for a while, you know that Road Trip has been a long time coming. With my first EP released in 2014, and two others following in 2015 and 2017, I was certainly overdue for a formally assembled full-length album. I wanted to take a moment to talk about each song on the album, and what inspired its creation. Because if we're being truthful, a whole hell of a lot has happened in my life these past few years. As someone who's known for being very transparent with her followers, I've decided that I will open up and spill the beans. And I'm not gonna hold back, I will tell you the truth and nothing but the truth. The good, the bad, and the awkward. (Heh, lol, that sounds like it could be an album title or something.) If you want to follow along musically, feel free to open up the album on Spotify or BandCamp - and sit back and enjoy the ride.
Track 1: Idaho
The Story: A co-write with Miranda Fairbrother, one of my best friends since middle school, this song was actually her creation long before it was mine. She brought me Idaho in the form of a poem as she was getting ready to leave our little hometown of Londonderry, NH to go to college out there. (Yeah, we're all still trying to figure that one out, but we still love you Miranda.) She knew she wanted me to turn it into a song, and with a little bit of lyrical rearranging and the help of a guitar and a summer campfire, it came to life.
Fun Fact: Idaho was written in 2012, and was actually almost the opening track of my 2015 album AAA, but was ultimately cut. It came back initially as a joke when I started writing about other cities/states on the album, and the band guys liked it so much that it ended up sticking around for real. I like to say that the song was ahead of its time. Unlike my 2007 song "Pennsylvania" written when I was 13 about the boy I liked moving away. That one can stay in 2007.
(Also, throwback to 2011 in this stellar photo. We were wearing strapless prom dresses, I swear to God we aren't naked.)
Track 2: Elephant in the Room
The Story: This one is another "oldie" but it's been so popular among you guys that it doesn't feel old at all. It took me a year to write this song, with the seedlings popping into my brain in late 2013, to finally be completed three days before I opened for Jason Lancaster (of Mayday Parade) in 2014. I already had a feeling this was going to be a good one, but whenever I heard the crowd react to this song at that show, that was the moment I really knew.
This song went on to open so many doors for me, from winning competitions, to allowing myself to write the rock songs I'd always wanted to, to gaining fans I don't think I would have made otherwise, and to even being included as a first-round Grammy nomination ballot option and a Great American Song finalist. If we're being honest, there were times I thought I'd never write a song as good as this one ever again. I felt like I'd peaked, or if I was somehow the local music version of a one hit wonder. But I was never bitter about it, and while I have been able to pop out other songs that some of you love just as much if not more... I still love this song just as much as I ever did. I will always be thankful for what my "little song that could" has done for me.
Fun Fact: Everyone thinks this is a break-up song, which is fine, I have no issue leaving my music open to personal interpretation. My ex-boyfriend even thought it was about him, which was hilarious, but it was not. This song was actually about someone who wanted to be in my band... and I didn't feel they were a good match, but I was very afraid of hurting their feelings so I kept avoiding the subject whenever it came up. Then this song happened. When they eventually heard this song, they immediately loved it and it is their favorite song of mine to date. Oops.
Track 3: On the Border
The Story (Part 1):
The first time I attempted to write this song, it was supposed to be about the Southern border and heading into Mexico. I had one particular guy in mind when writing this song, and it was sort of a joke about running off to Mexico with him. (It later would become a Canadian themed song, hence this photo from Vancouver.) I came up with the chorus... and that was about it. Just as quickly as it was born, the song moved into my unfinished vault where young songs go to die.
The Story (Part 2): Flash forward just over a year later. Tom (my drummer/current boyfriend) and I attended a music event, and the original guy "On the Border" was inspired by was at this event. We're all friends - hugs were exchanged, and it was a jolly good time. But then... my brain started doing... the songwriter thing. We're in the car on the way home and I said, "Tom, it's time. It's coming back. It's entering my brain. We need to write it TONIGHT." And that's the story of how my boyfriend and I co-wrote a song about another man. I don't know about you, but we think it's hilarious.
Fun Fact: "On the Border" was at one point, a contender for the title of the album, referencing living on the border of reality and fantasy in these songs. However, because I couldn't nail the song when I tried writing it the first time, I dropped the idea of it being the album title. This was actually the last song I finished writing for the album, so the concept of "Road Trip" had already been long present and implanted in my brain.
Track 4: Folk Song
The Story: My ex-boyfriend was notorious for constantly leaving his crap around my house. One day, I ended up stubbing my toe on his harmonica. After a few choice words, I picked it up and started fiddling around with it.
After a little while of going back on forth on the harmonica melody you hear in the beginning of the song, I said to myself, "Well, it's too bad I don't write folk songs, or I'd actually be able to do something with this."
And then my world came to a freezing halt. "Hold up," I thought. "Why do I need to write a folk or blues song to use this thing? Why are we constantly gatekeeping genres and the kinds of music artists are allowed to explore? Why does the music industry have so many rules no one actually cares about?" The first draft was finished in ten minutes.
Fun Fact: The first draft had a pre-chorus that included a small nod to "All Star" by Smash Mouth, but I ultimately decided that while rather humorous, it wasn't fully necessary.
Track 5: Can't Look Back
The Story: Can't Look Back was the first single released from Road Trip, in August of 2018, but the song's roots trace back much much further. Sometimes, even when you want something more than anything else in the world, it just makes sense in your life to go in a different direction. It is one of the most painful songs I've ever written, and unless specifically requested, I've come to a point where it's very difficult for me to perform anymore.
I started writing this song in the shower on a lonely day in 2014. It would take me two years to write. I knew - exactly - what this song was supposed to be, and I call it one of my "prophecy" songs because when I got the final master, it was everything I'd envisioned down to the smallest details.
Fun Fact: Okay, maybe not a fun fact. From those first humming of "turning around, turning around" in 2014 - to finally finishing writing the song lyrics in 2016 - to recording and releasing it in 2018... the timeline of this song eerily followed the timeline of my history with the person it was written about. I released this song approximately two weeks before things went down that would lead to me and the person I wrote it about never speaking again.