today’s audio is the demo of the song “kiss off kiss”, the title track of my last album, released in 2021. which honestly feels like 150 years ago. what have i been doing in the meantime? what have we all been doing? i sometimes reflect and draw a blank. then i pause and realize i have been raising carl, learning the violin, and writing an entirely new musical. more on that during the news break!
“kiss off kiss” never took off as a song that got played at shows, or the radio, and i didn’t make a video for it. for various reasons, despite being the title track, it kind of fell by the wayside. but this morning as i was thinking about this episode, i actually got out my guitar and played “kiss off kiss”, as my march 2025 self. and surprise! i enjoyed it for the first time in many years.
it’s always a trip to carry songs along with you in this way. like the best old friends, they hold your deep roots but are also a mirror to your present self. i love that a song can exist in all these time frames, but i was also curious to go back to “kiss off kiss’s'" origins and see what was lost, along the way.
there is a kind of slippage that happens in the path from inspiration to composition to recording to performance. sometimes this shift is positive - the song becomes more itself, the parts gel and become greater than their individual contributions. sometimes a song needs a live audience to come into itself and take off.
but sometimes this slippage isn’t so fruitful. an energy and initial spark can get deadened by the process of bringing in other collaborators. or somehow in the translation to an audience, the song just doesn’t come through the way i intend. why this is remains a mystery to me, but its also a fact of my creative dream world butting up against the reality of actual existence. win some, lose some, and keep writing, i say.
so after spending some pleasant time with “kiss off kiss” in 2025, i decided to go back to the summer of 2020 and my original demo for the song, the moment when the idea was hot and fresh and focussed. per my habit, i had joyfully deployed every instrument for the demo. and i think, in this case, there’s something to that energy. listening to the demo, there’s a sass and a speed and a lightness that slipped out of the song when it got recorded and performed. even if you can’t discern the difference, i can and it makes me again love a song i had fallen out with.
hey yall! it’s my favorite time of year in western mass, “mud season”, and i highly recommend going back to listen to the episode of the same title in season one of Fax Of Life.
on wednesday march 26, join me on youtube at 8p ET for a live taping of “back catalog listening party”, where i’ll be discussing my 2013 album, MANIFESTRA. we’ll listen to some of the songs together, and i’ll share some thoughts on how i made the album plus how it lands in 2025.
if you’re anywhere in the northeast US consider joining me for a half-day performance workshop April 26, in northampton MA. we’ll work through pre-performance routines, onstage tactics, and you’ll get a chance to workshop your own performance style with me and an audience of your peers. this is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to get more comfortable in front of a group of people, for any reason, though our focus will be on music performance.
the spring slate of shows is coming together, with summer on the way soon. may 25 come see me at the virginia women’s music festival, or join me the next day for a hiking concert in richmond, virginia. as always, all info is at erinmckeown.com/shows
and finally as a reminder, in 2026, my new musical OUT HERE will premiere at Chicago’s Court Theatre, and in august of 2026, i’ll be leading a history and music tour of scotland. please make your plans now!
i know things are tough in the world right now, financially, politically, emotionally, but if you have the capacity, please consider becoming a paying subscriber to this newsletter. i don’t run kickstarters, gofundmes, or patreons. this newsletter is my way of organizing folks who want to chip in a little each month to help me keep going as a musician. any level of subscription makes a big difference to me.
if you aren’t able to subscribe financially, please consider subscribing, following, and reviewing on your podcast platform of choice. that helps big time too! and as always, for listening!
if you have seen me play at all since “kiss off kiss” came out, you’ll know that the entire record was written in a very short amount of time, about a single person. as i tell the story, i had had a few dates with someone, then the relationship had ended. the how and why weren’t really important, so i never shared them. what was important was that in the quiet aftermath of that breakup (can you call it a breakup after 4 dates?) i decided to wring as much song-ness as possible out a limited experience. a parlor trick to mend a broken heart.
when telling this story onstage, the line “13 songs from 4 dates” always gets a laugh. but there’s some big-time slippage happening there. the relationship was a lot more than just a punch-line. and in the writing of the album, i tried really hard to give as good as i got. for every barb i sent towards my ex-person (partner? after 4 dates?) i tried to send at least one towards myself. i somehow thought it was only fair to hold myself as accountable as i held the other person. this project of fair-ness and self-abnegation i think also slipped in the telling of the project. as performed by me, the “kiss off kiss” songs could only seem one-sided. like, here i was strutting and flinging and singing my side of the story.
in truth, there has only been my side of the story. back in 2019 when my person and i had the talk that ended the relationship, it was pretty painful. but our conversation was cut short by work obligations, so we made a plan to continue the conversation the next day.
but that never happened. i never heard from my person again. i believe the children call this “ghosting” but that term has some slippage too. i certainly tried a few times to finish the conversation by reaching out. but there was only silence, digital and otherwise. i think ultimately my person made the right choice for them, obviously, but in the end also for me. the thing was just better off left alone.
but was it? it was not for me! because i then went on to write 13 songs from 4 dates, cue the laughter, and travel all over the world telling people all about it. and giving interviews. and selling a record, which came with a book where i wrote essays about breaking up. and in all that talking and singing and showing, i never heard one peep from the subject of the art. what’s the word for turning ghosting into content? aaah! its “social media”.
this churn of content and repetition of a wound caused its own kind of slippage, which was actually positive: i truly got over the relationship. the bewilderment of being left hanging, so to speak. the sadness of what was lost interpersonally. the open sore of expressed vulnerablity being met with silence. it all just ceased to cause me as much pain.
this spring, the person that “kiss off kiss” is about released their next book. whether i know them or not, i can unequivocably say they are an excellent writer, whose books i have enjoyed a great deal. knowing them, i’d say this: of course they are a wonderful writer, i dont mess with scrubs and neither do they.
anyway, their next book arrived. i pre-ordered it, then feverishly checked my app as the release day approached, hoping for the pre-sale sample to appear on my phone. it never did, the whole book dropping instead on release day.
i am a busy creative professional with a full personal life. and yet, i dropped everything that day to read this book, burning through the pages until i had read the whole thing. because i like their writing? of course. because i am interested in the subject of the book? not so much. the answer is simple: i was looking for myself in their work. this was the first book that they had written and released since our relationship, and i wanted to know was i in it? i had felt compelled, affected, changed enough by our relationship to devote an entire work, an entire content cycle, resources and publicity to it. would they do the same?
dear listeners, they did not. in a book full of personal anecdotes and real-names of real-people, i am nowhere to be found. could this possibly be the cruelest ghosting of all? on second thought, i take back the work “cruel” because i know this person is not malicious. just thoughtful and self-preserving. and fully autonomous, deserving the dignity and respect of making their own choices. i truly mean that.
in all my years of being a human with other humans, to my knowledge, no one has ever written a song about me. for better or for worse. can you blame me for hoping someone would? especially this person? my high school boyfriend wrote a scathing play about our teenage breakup. it was hard to read. but also… flattering! i had mattered. i had engendered art, be it great or not. i can hear the ego in that statement, of course. but also the humanity. we’re always looking for an echo back. did i matter to you? you did, i wrote you an album. or, as the last lines of “kiss off kiss” say
hey little miss mister what's got you so down down down?
whatcha say little mister do like my album?
after reading the new book, i went on instagram and DM’d the author. i wrote a quick note of appreciation and sent best wishes for the release. i made no mention of “kiss off kiss”. and… within a day a message came back. the first communication of any kind in the many years since our last, painful conversation. the note was gracious, warm, appreciate, and brief. “take care!” they closed, a kind but firm shutting down of any further conversation.
again, i am grateful for that gentle door closing. but i also know that when their next book comes out, its likely i’ll again tear through the pages, wondering if i made it into the narrative.
x erin
ps - if you’ve ever written something about me, i totally want to hear it. i mean it.
pps - here is carl, modeling album swag from my pal kris delmhorst. her gorgeous new release “ghosts in the garden” is out now.
¡ME GUSTA! : SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS!
as a person of deep irish heritage, i mostly think st. patrick’s day is hokum/bunkum/scat. but i loved this pod episode about the “irish-i-fication” of pop culture!
as a genX-cusper, technically X-ennial, the 90’s swing boom was life-changing. it literally changed the direction of my musical soul, directly resulting in my first album “distillation”. i always knew it was more than a fad, with deeper cultural roots, but did you?
i have spending alot of time the last few years on chicago’s south side. amanda williams is a home-grown genius.
speaking of ted talks, here’s one from the brilliant mind of lear debessonet, who directed “miss you like hell”. it is pure lear througout, rigorous, hopeful, communal, and full of surprises.
a guide to getting pronouns right. it’s not that hard!!! i promise!!
an evergreen topic: how pharmaceuticals get their weird names.
UPCOMING SHOWS
2025
now - June 2026 - Fredericksburg VA
Fredericksburg Area Museum
Out And About: The Walk-in Closet
VISIT
March 26, 8p ET - ONLINE
"Back Catalog Listening Party”
Erin discusses their 2013 album MANIFESTRA in a live pod taping
WATCH
April 26, 2025 - Northampton MA
One Day Performance Workshop @ The Parlor Room
TICKETS & INFO
May 25, 2025 - Kents Store VA
Virginia Women’s Music Festival
TICKETS
May 26, 2025 - Richmond VA
Hike & Concert @ Bryan Park
TICKETS & INFO
2026
April 10-May 10, 2026 - Chicago IL
World Premiere of OUT HERE @ Court Theatre
TICKETS & INFO
Aug 17-27 - Scotland
10 Day Tour of the Scottish Borderlands
TICKETS & INFO
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