today’s audio is a song i wrote for my song game writing group a few weeks ago. the prompt was FACE TO FACE. it’s hard for me not to think immediately that “face to face” is better than any other ways we communicate, especially after the last four years of pando and post-pando life. happy four year anniversary, dearest covid!
it seems obvious the benefits of being in the same room with someone in a real-time, unmediated way. there’s body language, eye contact, pheromones, clear tone and intention. there’s laughter and silence and overlapping chat.
but to be honest, sometimes i prefer “the movies”, as the song shorthands the world of writing. the slower pace of releasing a song, letting people find it, then responding to it in ways you might never hear is still a conversation of sorts. and on a personal level, i appreciate texting and email for the same opportunities recorded songs afford: i can take my time digesting what someone has said, and equally take my time making sure i am saying exactly what i want to say back. i’m not someone who is a reckless talker by any means, but in real-time conversation, especially about fraught things, i can get clouded, even flooded, with emotions. being truthful, it’s usually paralyzing fear. then i am no good to anyone.
but back to the song: for the sake of the exercise i decided to write about the litany of disappointments that come with a music career. fun times, i know! and yet, i really love my songs, my movies. they are wonderful company that i enjoy spending time with in different phases of my life. and as the bridge of the song says, they don’t need much from me. unlike their human counterparts, who seem to need me to talk to them, to process with them, to join them on a list of tasks i am not much interested in.
just for clarity, i am not planning to quit writing songs and being a musician when i am 50. it just seemed like a fun way to end the song. and also, i cant believe i have to say this, but i do… please don’t come to my house if you’re not invited.
hey yall! thank you so much for listening… and for spreading the word about the Fax of Life. after last episode i got a little bump of new subscribers. welcome new folks, we’re glad to have you!
friends in the atlanta area, i’ll be making a rare trip down to support Woodstock Arts’ production of Miss You Like Hell. i’ll be playing a free show at 6p on march 9 before the evening performance. it’s bold and brave for a theater to put on our show in the current political climate, so let’s let woodstock know that we appreciate their programming choices. and supporting regional theater always a good deed.
the first week of april, i’ll be headed out with my pals Welcome To Night Vale as they close out their 23-24 touring. check out erinmckeown.com/shows for the complete schedule. i still need merch help in columbus OH, pittsburgh, and jersey city. drop me a line erin@erinmckeown.com if you can join us. two free tickets and a super fun time!
alright yall - rate, review, subscribe and keep telling your friends! back to the episode…
the other day i was walking in the woods with carl. one of our favorite trails is along a bluff across the river from my house. after a short walk along the ledge, the trail breaks out into an open meadow with a gorgeous view. the moment is always a stunner and one of the reasons i continue to live in my place, even though i don’t own it, and it will shortly fall into the river with our next 100-year-flood.
the morning was crisp and bright. the sky was high and clear. the meadow was free of snow and the birds were talking a mile a minute.
“it’s spring,” i thought, with some elation.
as an honorary new englander though, i am taught not elate, not to trust a good feeling, and certainly not to trust the coming of spring. even though it’s the first days of march, the solstice and daylight savings time approach, i know that the future could still, in fact will likely, hold temperatures in the teens, blizzards, and more stretches of days without sun.
i learned this harsh lesson the spring of my freshman year in college. growing up in virginia, we definitely got snow. there were always a few days of powdery delight in late january or february. these days allowed us to build sledding tracks down the front steps with ramps at the end that launched us over the driveway and into a drainage ditch. delight!
but that winter of 1997, in providence (which is new england lite, don’t @ me), i experienced the now ordinary routine of blizzards, arctic freezes, ice storms, and weeks and weeks of gray skies. by the time i made it to april of that year, i was storm-battered and shell-shocked. but as the days slowly got warmer and the sun shone brighter, i stopped hunching my shoulders against the cold.
and then.
in mid-april we got a foot of snow. i remember walking home from class with the snow just starting to fall. before i could make it back to my coop, i was shivering in my too thin coat and my sneakers were soaked.
my friends, this day broke me like very few other moments in my life. thereafter i reconstituted myself as a new englander. forever wary of good things.
this year “winter” has been confusing. usually there’s a perpetual layer of snow in my yard from october until april. this season it’s mostly been brown grass and frozen mud. i have a terrible car for bad weather, and at least 3-4 times each winter i get stuck somewhere and need to get pulled out by a tow truck. i haven’t so much as slid down a hill this winter.
coming back to the other day, looking over the glorious meadow in the bright morning light, watching carl gallop playfully down the hill with his tail alert and swishing, i had my next thought:
“i haven’t fallen on the ice and hit my head this year.”
without these winter traditions, i am suspicious. did we have a winter at all? i’m not sure we did. the same way climate change has taken away some of the enjoyments of summer and replaced them with extreme heat and multiple 100-year-floods, it has also taken the bite out of our winters, it seems.
sure, a winter without arctic temps, feet of snow, calls to AAA, and slight concussions is a physically easier winter. but something is also spiritually missing: the personal thaw.
part of how i manage winter is by hibernation. i get quieter, i get slower, i hunch my shoulders and put a hat on that never comes off. literally. and like the bears that i occasionally see in my yard, i regenerate and rebuild and replenish. when the days get longer and the sun comes out more often, i am ready to warm up. i am in all ways refreshed and ready for conversation, work, fun.
i’ve noticed this year, as we head into spring, i am tired and a little run down. and i think it’s because i didn’t properly freeze this winter. in the next few months, i’m going to have to find little pockets of time to mini-hibernate, to turn off for moments or days, if i can manage it.
or maybe new england will step in and give me a blizzard in april. only then i will feel completely ready for spring.
x erin
ps - carl is ready for spring
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a truly bonkers story about an NBA player whose long arms saved a dolphin’s life!
i’m not a big fan of noah kahan’s music, but i am rooting for him as a person.
true detective season 4 ended in the most perfect way possible.
a fascinating code switch on the music of and decended from japanese internment camps.
sure sure everyone is making dance videos to “texas hold ‘em” and i love it. but that song is deep deep deep, as this episode of switched on pop explains.
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
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 17, 2024 - Northampton MA
Iron Horse (with SPOUSE)
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
to thaw you have freeze