This is what I wrote on Instagram with regards to these songs:
"What a wonderful year 2016 has been. So many big changes and positive things have come to fruition this year and I am starting to see clear where I fit in this musical world I'm running around in. This is the year that I fell back in love with my acoustic guitar, with natural sounds dressed up proudly in their blemishes and with words that are more poetry than simple placeholders for melodies.
Inspiration found me in the music made by The Band in 68' and all the books written about that magical time. I got lost in a handful of albums and songs (as I often do)
The Band - The Band
Music From Big Pink - The Band
Jason Isbell - Speed Trap Town (song)
Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker
Ryan Adams - Ashes and Fire
Jesse Daniel Smith - Basic Truths (song)
and each one had a big impact on how I went about creating music over the last 10 months. The way I placed microphones on drums. The way I did my harmonies. The way Mike laid back on his kit. It all seeped into the music one way or another.
Earlier this spring I released the folksy/sunny duo of tunes, "So Much More With Me / Holloway" and after some deliberation with Mike, decided to end 2016 in the same "vibe" we started it. So here is the second edition in that "vibe", Annalyne / A Hundred Times / Alabama. I really hope you dig it."
*I wrote it on the Bloor line on my way to a show downtown (Toronto)
To go into more depth though…..I was planning on releasing an EP this fall but ran into a bit of an issue with the group of songs I had. The tunes that were ready to go were a little too varied; a couple of Paul Simony ones, a couple of R & B influenced ones, and a couple of ones similar to those I released in the spring.
So I discussed what to do with Mike, and it was his recommendation that we put out the songs that fit best alongside "So Much More With Me/Holloway" as another single. This way we could finish the theme that we started the year with and move forward to new territory in 2017!
SIDE NOTE
***I have always had this problem (good fortune?) with writing songs where I seem to get bored with one genre and move around a lot. If my songwriting could be characterized by a Beatles LP it would be The White Album because I'm all over the place thematically.***
ANNALYNE
This song was a direct musical offspring of a tune that I had been working on called "Harlem". Where as Harlem was more in the 'Heartbreaker' Ryan Adams vein, Annalyne was definitely going for the world that The Band's "Ophelia" lives in. Laid back, three part harmonies and those syrupy stuttering drum patterns. I wrote it very quickly after a night out in Guelph visiting some friends, got home to my parents house, sat down at the kitchen table with some strong coffee, and bashed out the skeleton of the tune and the chorus in a few hours. This rarely happens….but when it does it's usually following a night out. Things are always very clear in the throes of a hangover. I have had thoughts over the last few years like "well I can't stop drinking completely…I'll need those hangovers for tunes down the line".
Although I think the song is pretty self explanatory there are a few lines in there that I'm very proud of. "In the earliest hours of the morning/under cigarette smoke and broken light/everybody is searching for something/to fill up all of the loneliness inside".
A HUNDRED TIMES
I had written the first verse and chorus of this song a long long time ago when I was in my first band The Sweet Mack. It was a little slower back then and wasn't really appropriate for a rock band but this summer I revisited it, finished the lyric and wrote a bridge to tie it all together. It wasn't until I added the organ, though, that the song really came alive. It has a bunch of (what I would call) Noel Gallagher chords in it that ring out forever and as a huge Oasis fan growing up it was intensely fun recording it with those Mancunian's in mind.
This song is about the inevitability of getting older and missing out on things that could have been. It's about a relationship that never was and coming to terms with the fact that someone else is the right one for her/him. "I doubt my hopes of you and I/Cause I know, deep down, you're satisfied with you". We've all had these things happen and we all will, hopefully there is some clarity on the other side of it for you at the end of it all. Although it is proving hard to pull off live, this song feels the best to me on recording and I'm so glad I put the hours/days/weeks in to finish it.
ALABAMA
This song started out as a jam between Mike and I and we would play the chorus and the piano riff into the ground at every band practice. I kept it on the back burner for a while knowing full well I'd be recording it sooner or later but every time I sat down to put verses together nothing would come. This pattern continued for about a year and a half until I decided to write a "story" song.
I found some information on a Civil Rights lawyer named Clifford Durr and after spending an afternoon reading up on him, his past, his wife and his amazing contributions to the civil rights movement, the song literally wrote itself. Known mostly for bailing Rosa Parks out of jail with Edgar Nixon, his whole history is impressive. I could write a full album on him alone!!! I'm proud of this song because it is a historically accurate lyric and it isn't solely about a relationship. I'm hoping it will give me the courage to tackle different lyrical material in the future. It's challenging for me to write about things that aren't happening inside my own head but this is a step in the right direction I think!
Thanks so much for checking out the tunes!!!
Lots of love
Mattie