today’s audio is a demo of a new song “whatever will bleed” from my songwriting game. the prompt was “BAD BLOOD” and besides immediately thinking about T.swift’s banger, i tried to keep my mind open as i began to write.
to explain how i arrived at this song, here is a particularly Fax Of Life digression. when i was a kid, my parents had a beaten up paperback copy of SHOGUN, the epic doorstopper of a novel by james clavell. set in feudal japan, it was a racist block-buster that has continued to drive interest in japanese culture.
when i first read it around age 11 or 12 (too early) i didn’t understand much of it, but i loved the seafaring and the language and the descriptions, however stereotypical, of japanese culture. i probably read it another 2-3 times before i left my parents’ house for college.
cut to 2023, and i see an ad for a new limited series adaptation of the book. after watching the trailer, my hopes soared. maybe in today’s world, we could get a fair, balanced and still compelling version of the story. the show starts next week, so we shall see.
meantime, i decided to re-read the novel. it was both better and worse than i remembered. much like my childhood in general! this time, after finishing it on my e-reader, i was served the opportunity to read other books in clavell’s famous asian saga. knowing i was in for some more page-turning racist soft-porn, i jumped into a novel called GAI-JIN, which picks up the action of SHOGUN two hundred years later.
all of this is to say, that the language and scene of “whatever will bleed” is directly influenced by my immersion in these books. i almost feel like i was cleaning out my brain by getting this world into a song.
also notable, the day before i wrote this, i had some friends over to play fiddle. we were working on an old time tune called “blackberry festival footrace”. it lives in the planet of tunes i call “old time metal”. these fast, minor-key pieces are heavy and dark and truly rad.
i decided to see if i could insert “blackberry festival footrace” into “whatever will bleed”. this required a little do-ing as the old time tune was in 6/8 and my tune was in 4/4, but i made it work and voila, a strange pseudo-classical electric guitar breakdown was born.
hey yall - thanks so much for listening, just a few announcements and we’ll dig back into the episode.
for those of yall that live in the atlanta area, woodstock arts production of Miss You Like Hell opens on March 8. the next day, March 9, i’ll be playing a free concert just before the evening performance. come join us and support this awesome theater company. we love the new south!
in april i’ll be headed out with my good pals Welcome To Night Vale as they close out the tour for their latest show, The Attic. we’ll be in toronto, st louis, louisville, columbus, pittsburgh, jersey city and northampton MA. as usual i need merch help in these cities, so drop me a line if you’re interested. erin@erinmckeown.com two free tickets for you! and my unending gratitude!
just a reminder to rate, review, or subscribe on your platform of choice… and now back to the fax…
a few weeks ago, i met some friends for breakfast at noon. or as we like to call it, second breakfast. amid the usual pleasantries as we sat down, i asked the diner owner how she was.
“well, after 11 days of no sun, i’m glad for this weather.”
she was right. the day was bright and glorious, if a little cold. but what struck me more was the part about how long it had been since we had seen the sun.
i was certainly aware that we’d been in a cloudy stretch of days, dark and cold mornings transitioning seamlessly to dark and cold afternoons. typical january in new england. but i hadn’t been counting the days.
11 days is a long time to go without sun.
i’ve been watching the HBO series True Detective: Night Country, and i have been loving it. don’t worry, there will be no spoilers here. but just to say that it takes place in a part of the far arctic reaches of alaska where for more than 11 days there is no sun, in fact for several months in the year, it is perpetual night.
i myself have been to alaska many times, during all the seasons - the summer when the sun barely sets and the winter where it was indeed night country. so i’m not complaining about the 11 days here in new england. but on the other hand, once helen mentioned it, i couldn’t help feeling like i had been swimming far below the surface of a cold, dark lake and hadn’t realized it.
i’m prone to this sort of thing. i tend to just deal with what’s in front of me. i can generally make any situation work well enough to get through. now whether i should make any situation work or not is a totally different story. another podcast episode, i think.
like many people, i suffer from depression. i know, i know, big whoop: an artist has depression. it’s true it’s a common condition, perhaps even pre-condition, for the creative life. i used to think i was the exception to this. i’m the one artist i know who isn’t depressed, i would think.
but then my depression got so bad i had to get treatment. after i began to recover, i realized just how depressed i had been for years without knowing it. years and years of making days without the sun “work”.
as for how i deal with my depression today, i like to use a line that the brilliant quiara alegria hudes wrote for our musical Miss You Like Hell.
“when depression makes your bones ache? All hands on deck: candles, gods, ancestors, curanderas, cleansings, sage sticks, medical professionals.”
i might add “dogs” to the list too. carl is the best, most expensive, furriest, sweetest anti-depressant i know of. i used to go days without laughing. now i can hardly go an hour without something he does causing me to laugh out loud.
other ways i work my way through the sunless days, metaphorical and otherwise, include fiddling with friends, writing songs for the song game, showing up for my students, and making this pod.
don’t get me wrong, i am so grateful for every person in the Fax of Life orbit, but sometimes i get discouraged that more people don’t listen or read. but i tell you what, making the time to write and record these episodes, getting your responses to them, especially the Great Me Gusta Rebellion of 2023, truly brightens my cloudy skies.
people often say the nicest things to me after shows. its one of the things i enjoy most about performing. the big black void of the auditorium speaks back! lately i’ve taken to saying the following in those situations:
if you keep going, i will too.
so here’s to keeping going and better weather!
x erin
ps - prozac with fur!!!!
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
someday i will start a Really Terrible Orchestra too.
i’ve been on a little molly ringwald trip after enjoying her in the new season of FEUD (the one about capote). here she is being intelligent and awesome talking about her unique life.
i am taking applications for potential mushrooms to grow out of my side. you can find me on hinge,
hockey players! teeth!
UPCOMING SHOWS
March 8 -24, 2024 - Woodstock GA
Miss You Like Hell at Woodstock Arts
TICKETS
March 9, 2024 - Woodstock GA
An Evening with Erin McKeown
performance before evening show
INFORMATION
March 30, 2024 - Buckland MA
Music In The Middle of Nowhere
TICKETS
April 1, 2024 - Toronto
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 3, 2024 - St. Louis MO
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 4, 2024 - Louisville KY
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 5, 2024 - Columbus OH
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 6, 2024 - Pittsburgh PA
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 7, 2024 - Jersey City NJ
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
April 8, 2024 - Northampton MA
performing as The Weather with Welcome To Night Vale
TICKETS
May 25, 2024 - Kents Store VA
Virginia Women’s Music Festival
TICKETS
If you have further questions or concerns about COVID protocols, please contact the venues directly.
Reminder, Erin does not appear in productions of Miss You Like Hell
night country