Behind the Music
FIERCER Words and Stories
For this week’s WR, I’m offering a long-form treatment of the new album FIERCER, which came out this week on Bandcamp. My friend and subscriber Steve asked for a lyric sheet and proper liner notes. As a fan of those things myself, I’m happy to provide. This is an album full of stories. It was mostly written in a week in Scotland in the Spring of 2024. Or at least, that’s where the majority of the songs got their origin. They came after a year of writer’s block, after the loss of my brother in the Spring of 2023. I’ve told those close to me that I really like this album - even as it’s a bit of a different direction than the Americana/folk stuff I’m most known for. Maybe I love it because I know what it meant to me to write again. Maybe it’s because I explore some sounds and styles I was excited to try. Music is such a wonderful thing. I’m just happy to share a bit of my story with you through music. Here’s the FIERCER “Behind the Music.” Cheers!
DON’T MAKE IT A THING
The opening track of FIERCER was actually the last track written. I had the music composed for a while with no lyrics or vocals. It didn’t fit in with recent JDW projects, but also didn’t settle into my ambient/experimental project John the Silent . When the other tracks were coming together I needed an opener, something to set the tone of a very different album. Direct and a bit darker this time. A “from me to you” delivery, wrapped up in soundscapes and beats. Its gonna get real. Just don’t make it a thing.
LYRICS
What if I told you what I was really thinking?
What if I said the things deep in my soul
The game is on, the stage is set, the violence is besetting
But we’ve got time to kill, don't we?
If we just use passive language, but apply it to one side
Then the party can keep going, we can put a hashtag on our post and
Buy this —----- album
Buy this ————album!
Just don’t make it a thing
Just don’t make it a thing
You always make it a thing
PYRE
Maria wrote the lyrics to this one on the Isle of Iona, one of three collaborative tracks on FIERCER. She’ll be offering a guest post soon, telling her own story of these songs. (For now, subscribe to her substack here. You’ll dig it. As far as the music, this one was a lot of fun to compose and record. I was listening to a ton of “Madchester” bands at the time (Inspiral Carpets, Happy Mondays, The Charlatans), but, especially, arguably to an unhealthy level, The Stone Roses. Friends have told me this one channels a bit more the New Order and Smiths side of the spectrum. I’m cool with that too.
LYRICS
Boys collect shells
Not the delicate treasures of sand
But the plastic and metal chutes the hunters left here
These timebombs, with cosmetics, grocery bags, plastic ghosts
We sacrifice our children trying to do the good we know the most
Good God, Good Lord
Good God Good Lord forgive us
CHORUS
The mines set fire they'll burn forever
The mines caught fire
you're never gonna see her
The mines caught fire there's a pyre
for the old life, the life we left behind
yeah they'll burn forever
We called back, answer with movement forward
to the land of dust, resentment, and rust
Arrived before the blaze kindled we toured before someone lit a match
the mines caught fire setting fire to the old world
WORRY THE BIRDS
Another collab with Maria, also written on Iona. I recall a rainy day overlooking Monk’s Bay, but Maria can tell the story. The music was also being written on Iona, in the guest house of a monastery so kind to house us. The other major influence on this album, besides Madchester, was the music in the local pubs. This song and the next one are kind of a “meditative duo” and the most steeped in the experience of Scotland, I think, or at least, I hope, as a mere visitor.
LYRICS
Fay brought the bae home, last of May
throwing cobblers knives on ancient stone
Rain veiling the knoll, pissing tulle o’r the bothy,
the dark door rattling, the skua straining
Fay wrapped the boy in felted wool
Don’t you worry, worry, worry the birds
Purred his mummy, blind to the blue rheumy
swimming in his eyes, singing on
CHORUS
Be my bonnie bairn of the highland
Raised against the wind, put pain at your back
I bid you stand on the craig and sing.
The wee one ne’er mewled, sucked his fist
Like a lamb, leg and limb grew long
But thin as a spindle, he shivered
The dark door clanking, the skua straining
Worry worry worry, cawed the birds
Fay outsang them, “Bairn, feather in my cap
She laid him on his pillow, praised his lack of tears
REPEAT CHORUS
The dandy terrier warmed the bairn
Spindle-shanked fingers curled into its fur
Blank eyes searched for bright voice crooning over the cairn
Worry, worry, worry called the birds
REPEAT CHORUS
Fay lay the bairn in baptismal white
The cabinetman hollowed the box
On the first of May, Fay sang the last
Song to the wind, song to the wind
Worry, worry, worry, worry the birds
Don’t worry the birds or face the eyes
Of the maker of the land and sea
Be my Bonnie Bairn of Highlands
I raise you against the wind
Put the pain behind your back
Bury you neath the craig
And bind you to heav’n.
DINT OF MIRACLE
The third of the “Maria trilogy” on this record. Musically, as mentioned, it draws on Scotland’s traditional folk, also, I feel like it reflects the reading and listening to Nick Cave I was doing on the trip. The rattle in the opening minutes is Oban whiskey on the rocks.
LYRICS
By some dint of miracle, we ferried o’er the field
Tied the rag to the tree, laid worries at the well
Dipped in the trickle, anoint ourselves
This dint of knoll and stone, quiet as a quilt,
Licks our kicks and bruises, the hedgerow hidden whimpers
Come mother, come modest success, come help
Curl up quietly in the crook of Ninian’s embrace
Common pilgrims, common sinners,
worn down by common cares
Longing to let down the milk of tears
By some dint of whimsy, someone blessed our end
We come to ourselves at this well, baubled by bawdy souls,
Stacking stones, remembering death ascents dissents.
This glen’s content, this holy well, bears our sins
Takes our grief and cares. By sink of grace
It sucks us into the silence of peace, of place.
Curl up quietly in the crook of St Non’s embrace
Common pilgrims, common sinners,
worn down by common cares
unburden the crush upon your breast
By some dint of miracle, we’re alive
Riddled with tumors, head hewn with sorrow
Praying, save the body, then the soul
We come to pray with deeds, Holy One
We knotted scraps, tied up ribbons, pinched pennies,
Bless us with a speck of a crumb of a miracle.
Curl up quietly in the crook of St Ita’s embrace
Common pilgrims, common sinners,
worn down by common cares
Speak the grief for your children’s children.
Whisper all will be well
All will be well, all things will be well
WITHOUT A NET
Well, this one might be the most difficult song to write on the album. It’s based on a true story about someone I know and love who was pushed out of a community that was very important to her, that used to be her home, all because of who she is. It was about the way the privileged can talk about things without really knowing the cost for those who really have everything to lose. I’ve had a few who have heard it say its among the heaviest things I’ve written. I consider it something of a sister to “The Defense" from the Gethesemani album.
LYRICS
Cold and strange
Tidings meant to bring us hope
Tidings so familiar
Now land brittle and confusing
Oh my bones Oh my blood
Oh my bones Oh my blood
CHORUS
And you speak of faith like life and death
But you have never lived without a net
You’ll land just find
Wave and smile, send your pious invitation
But still feast at the banquet, finish your plate
While I lay, I lay
Outside your gate
Maggie was the one who told the boys I’ve seen him with my eyes
They say Maggie you’re far too quick, your senses can tell lies
And they locked the door to the upper room
And deliberated in their minds
REPEAT CHORUS
BESPOKE TRACKSUIT HAIRCUT TERMINAL
This is the song that opened the floodgates for FIERCER. After my brother died in 2023 I had writer’s block for a year. I had some sketches of unfinished songs that ended up becoming Broken Hymnal I (first verse) but overall it was almost impossible to write songs for that year. It was our first night in Oban, Scotland, the small port town we stay in before taking the ferry to Mull and Iona. We had gone back to our flat for the night, Maria wanted to rise early to run. I decided to go back out, find a pub, for a pint, a dram, and hopefully some music. I couldn’t find any live music, but I ended up at a pub where a post-wedding party was underway. I sat in the corner, the tourist, just observing. The young people, the energy, the tension, the possibility, the anxiety, the older blokes in tracksuits, the whole scene. I sat with my pen and notebook, and an unlikely line opened up writing again - “Pissed minors quaff Corona” - it became a song about much more than that - I felt my heart open up, to story, to song, to letting in some heartbreak and possibility again. This song is one of my personal favorites, for a lot of reasons, but mostly because it was a bit of grace that showed up for me, in an unlikely place.
LYRICS
Pissed minors quaff Corona, downing iridescent shots
While aging creeps in Sambas, snake the room like cautious climbers
Feel the plastic rock and take the chance
But its too late, too late to the dance, so step off
CHORUS
Give us something more than just feeling then framing
Something more than just the passing of our days
I’ll embrace you and then tell you to —-- off in the same measure
But Jesus Christ I love you I want you to be okay
Bespoke haircuts, trainers and tracksuits
Decibels have reached beyond the pitch
Even Rude Boy falls back into the ether
DJ spins the tunes and bids for you to see him
For the care he has put into the placement of the playlist
But the neon braided girl slinging drinks tonight
Goes to bed with nothing in her head and nothing in her hand
REPEAT CHORUS
Bridge: What a crazy time to be born, what a lazy time to be bored
Pretty girls with short skirts and sad eyes
Nervous boys with confidence and weed
Neither one is really being honest
Neither one is gonna be okay
But I want you to be okay
What is it to be okay
On a planet burning?
Look across the room
Everyone of them is doomed
But so are you so be kind
REPEAT CHORUS
STEP AWAY (FOR SCOTT)
After I left the pub where the lyrics for “Bespoke” got written, I walked down by the bay in Oban. Scott Hutchison, the late singer of the Scottish band Frightened Rabbit was on my mind. Scott’s music means a lot to me. There was a time when I actually had to take a break from it because it hit so heavy at times, especially during times of depression. But I always found such heart, such empathy, such love in his songs, even when they walked that line of despair. Scott walked into a bay on the Scotland coast to end his life. I sat at the bay, looking into the water, and wrote the lyrics and heard the melody for “Step Away". I went back to our flat. Maria was asleep, but I needed to get this song down before it left me. Things seemed so fleeting. I framed some chords around the melody that arrived at the bay on my travel Martin. I recorded it in a corner by a window on my phone. That is the version that made it onto the album. The birds and the cars, those are not overdubbed, they are in real time. You are hearing a song twenty minutes after it was written, a first or second take, in all its imperfection.
LYRICS
Now I know just how you could have done it
Walked down the pier into the bay
Thank God the pubs were all shuttered
I could have followed you easily
No I cannot judge I cannot know
What it was to swim inside your troubled soul
But I looked into the depths tonight
Something I have seen and planned
And tonight I put that ghost to death
And I’ll fight against the darkness
fight against the darkness in my mind
God I love you, I wish that you knew
I wish that I could have known you anyway
Not that I am savior, no one is but I’d bid
You to step away from the darkness
step away from the darkness in your mind
WE ARE MORE
Much like the opener, “Don’t Make It A Thing,” this one was written a bit differently and outside of the main body of the record. It also had its musical origins in a composition previously started. I originally played with the idea of naming the album “For Club and Country” based on a lyric from this song. I liked the play on words - its a football (soccer) term, but also could hint at the “club” aspects (madchester influence, beats) with still the “country” nature of my writing as a folk/americana artist at my core. In the end I went with the more direct FIERCER. I joke that this is my arena rock song, my Coldplay song. I like it ‘cause sometimes people need that. Hopefully its ultimately deemed a proper closer.
LYRICS
You are my club and country, sing this song tonight
as the night falls all around us like a star
We will shake our fists at the cynics, crush it all, crush it all
by a love that can't be silenced at all
We are more, more than the things we make
We are more, more than the things they take
More than the stutter-step embrace
More than a cog to be replaced
We are more than, we are more than
FIERCER is available here:
“Worry the Birds” T-Shirt!