The new album, EMERALD, song by song in her own words

Something To Get Through — A friend of mine was going through a terrible separation with his wife and he was in such a fog of pain, I could tell he didn’t think he was going to survive it. But I could tell it was different than that frozen feeling of big “D” Depression, and I thought, “It’s just something to get through” and then my thought had a melody, and the rest was easy, because I love my friend, and I wrote the whole thing as if I were sitting next to him on a park bench.

FM Radio — I have no idea what the first line of this song was, but I remember my daughter was taking a bath when I wrote the chorus, “FM RADIO EVERYWHERE I GO!”  And my daughter said, “Get me the wash cloth!” And I said, “I’ve got to write this down! Wait!” I knew right off the bat that I wanted to write this with Jill Sobule, because she is such a righteous lover of the ’70s.  We had a blast writing this song.  First rule from Jill: “We have to include Patty Hearst.” So right.

Empty Plane — The empty plane can mean a lot of things.  There are lots of crossroads in a busy life where you have to evaluate if you’re busy for a reason…or not.  I’m always grateful when big existential questions come to me in gentle, yet haunting dreams.

Emerald — I was driving to a gig in Bend with Loudon Wainwright III and it was so beautiful and nostalgic, driving along the mighty Columbia River in Oregon.  I thought, “Loudon is so prolific. I bet he would write a song about this. He would turn off the radio and start writing.  I am a loser.” But then I turned off the radio and started to write “Emerald,” and Loudon’s buddy, Richard Thompson, joined me on it, so I feel like less of a loser.  

Slippery Slope — Jim Lauderdale and I have been writing songs for a long time.  We both found our paths with a ‘steady wins the race’ formula of playing with a lot of different friends and writing as we go.  I wanted to write a love song that wasn’t overstepping, just honest and taking it one step at a time, like Jim.  It was a joy to make music with him. He is a charmer.

Here Tonight — I wrote this whole song with the talented Angel Snow in about two days in Nashville.  It was a reach for me, wanting to write a straight-ahead simple country pop song.  It wasn’t my intention to record it, but I was in Honduras writing songs for a documentary about a girls’ home and school, and the girls loved “Taylor Sweeft” so much, I wanted to give them a song for the documentary that was perhaps a little bit like the song of their heroine.  I knew I couldn’t pull off Beyonce even on a bet.

Girl Of The World — This is the song I wrote for the girls at Our Little Roses home and school in Honduras.  My friend, prize-winning poet Spencer Reece, was teaching them poetry, and I sensed that the girls were acutely aware of the risks, even the dangers, of expressing themselves, as girls and as Hondurans.  To speak the truth as one sees it, even poetically, especially poetically, always has consequences.

Mad River — I started writing this song during Occupy, because I realized that the witness—the freeze-frame shot—of where we are in history right now is valuable.  I saw these lovely boys jumping from the rocks in Vermont and also saw boys and girls in Vermont later that year (they seemed like the same kids, but that’s because I’m in my 40’s) singing their hearts out with a karaoke machine at a bar.  They had their passion, their rites of passage, honor, kindness, and bravery.  But I felt like the world was going to swallow them whole.

Weight Of The World — I heard this song for the first time in Montreal. I was pretty burnt out, the only time I felt that way in my entire career, and when I heard Kat sing this, I just dissolved into, as John Hiatt says, “a river of tears.”  I love this song, but I’m also so grateful to Kat for bringing me back to remembering how powerful a song can be.

Johnny Appleseed — When I started playing at summer camps, I wanted to hang out with middle-school aged kids, but I didn’t want to teach songwriting. So I decided to plant bee-friendly gardens with them, to talk in a non-sensationalizing way about ways we can steer the planet back to health.  Jimmy Buff from WDST in Woodstock said I should record “Johnny Appleseed” by Joe Strummer.  I wanted to perform it with a band on this side of the Atlantic as an homage to the raw, beautiful version Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros did.  So I did it with my good friends The Hooters in Pennsylvania.  A fabulous day in the studio with some of America’s best musicians!

New York Is A Harbor — This was the hardest song to write, but I had to do it.  New York is expensive and can feel very cold to the touch, but the history of New York as a haven, a touchstone, and place for dreams to grow is still very much in the air, if not in the rent structure. Many thanks to Bryn Roberts for helping me come up with the feel for the song. I couldn’t have done it without him.