Marilyn
“I thought about the loneliness of legends like Marilyn Monroe and Janis Joplin who, who may have had the love of the world but, may never have experience lasting intimate love with one person. There’s a tragic irony that has been true for so many of these icons, that they’re loved the most after they’re gone. The song is told from the perspective of a man who can’t stand to be in the shadow of someone who he believes is destined for greatness.”
The Real New York
“This song was inspired while living in Manhattan, and falling in love with the dirty, secret parts of the city, not just the glitz and the glamour. It’s about staying away from the touristy locations and delving into the places where real New Yorkers roam. I wanted to remove the mask of idealism, to wipe away the illusion of glamour. The New York that I discovered and loved is one where you can be exactly who you are in a city where you may or may not make it. The dirty, yet beautiful truth.”
High
“I wrote High about a relationship where I completely lost myself in a cloud of sex and smoke. It was how we numbed our senses to remain in denial that we both deserved more. It’s about stepping outside of the haze and trusting yourself to find a place that is lonely, but clear.”
Maypole
“A man I dated made me melt. He made me feel like I was the only one – like he really understood me. It wasn’t long before I realized that he was making a lot of other women feel this way too.”
Lilla
“Lilla is the first song I wrote for the album, and it’s about the only woman that I have ever been in love with. I decided not be ambiguous, but rather to write a love song specifically to this woman, asking her not to be afraid of the relationship just because of social taboos. Life is short, and the stakes have got to be high. You can’t close yourself off even if love didn’t come in the form that you expected. There’s got to be a risk.”
Train Song
“When my grandmother passed from Parkinson’s dementia, I felt as thought I’d lost so much of the comfort and security I had known all my life. Ironically, this is a hopeful song, and not the type of song I expected to write coming out of it. It’s about your whole world crumbling for a bit after losing someone you love.”
Just The Breath Of
“This is about losing the person I believed to be the love of my life, due to long distance. I was angry at him for giving up so easily, and for using the distance as an excuse.”
Crazy Is
“A journey through a relationship where I was made to feel crazy and insane. I felt trapped by a man who tried to turn me into exactly what he wanted, rather than loving me for who I was.”
Song of a Suffering Child
“I wrote this song a few months after a relative committed suicide, and his father blamed himself for having a shotgun in the closet. I started thinking about the ways in which people make their loved ones feel guilty. It’s about extreme forms of manipulation that reveal a person’s personal demons.”
Afterhours
“Shhhhh….”
Find Your Home
“I wrote this after my other Grandmother died. She was a genuine New Yorker who came from a simpler time, when things moved slower, technology wasn’t overwhelming, people were “more sophisticated,” as she liked to say, and time was cherished. The present world isn’t one that she understood or needed to continue to live in. She had already found her ‘home,’ and she always found her own way of telling her children and grandchildren to find theirs. She used to say, ‘It used to be that nobody went into the city without their gloves on.’ I allowed that to be the first line of the song.”
