Playlist

These, of course, are only a few of my songs.

Start Over

November Wedding

War Torn

Pretty Girl at the Gym

The Olive Branch We’re Offered

Carbon Love Song

February Album Writing Month

My best friend triple dog dared me to participate in the February Album Writing Month. In addition to being loathe to pansy out on a triple dog dare, I’m quite excited to have a good excuse to get my songwriting juices flowing all consistently again (being in love has been distracting me from it, I say unapologetically). Additionally this will go well with my yearly February goal of spelling “February” right on the first try without the help of spell check (unsuccessful thus far in this post), and also pronouncing it less awkwardly (which is in addition to my main goal of just surviving February, my least favorite month ).

FAWM seems like a great project and I’m happy to participate. In the interest of knowing myself and my tendencies, I’m very much less focusing on posting the songs I write in Feb, and more intently focused on achieving a song every two days. This is a nice low-bar goal — I tend to write a song every time I sit down with my guitar. The only thing I need is the motivation to actually sit down every day and write, and also to finish the songs I start. I’m also excited about using this (next) month as a tool to finish some incomplete songs I already have in the queue.

While it’s not my priority, I am hoping to record and post many of the songs I finish up here. Here’s my page for FAWM, though I’ll probably post more here than there.

Great! Hope you follow along!

Lying in Bed

Wow, I am definitely not dead. I am alive and still writing. Proof! Here’s a new uke song I’m quite fond of.

Listen with lyrics

Maiden Voyage

A song I wrote this week. Not sure what inspired me on this one, but I liked the way it came out. Hope you do too.

Listen with lyrics

SEA

Recorded live at the Carborro Hint Festival by Todd Finch of The Sound Shop Mobile Recording. My talented friend Ken Johnson of Kind Strangers played guitar along with me that day.

Listen with lyrics

Endtimes

I wrote this song on Wednesday night and am really happy with the way it came out, but I can’t get it recorded quite right. This is my best take out of the very many attempts. Listen with lyrics

She Makes the Day Begin

My new uke song that I’m quite happy with. I started writing it while I was stuck in a traffic jam, and finished it later that day.

Listen with lyrics

All the Loves You’ve Loved

Here’s a new song, and a welcome relief from a many month dry spell. Songwriting is such an ebb and flow for me, which I know and know, but during the ebb it always feels like I’ll never write a song I like again. And during the flow it feels like I’ll never stop writing things I like. So there you go. I’ll take it as no small coincidence that the influx of creativity seems to match up with my current trend of having a show nearly every weekend. Which I have enjoyed immensely.

Listen with lyrics

Mary, Marry Me.

All this cold has me holed up drinking coffee and recording love songs! I re-felt and re-recorded this tune to make it a little more tender.

Other version can be found here.

Listen with lyrics

Oh my goodness, I am totally still alive.

And kickin’, no less. I’ve been writing a little, swimming a lot, and listening to an unhealthy (or very healthy) amount of Louis Armstrong. Last night I played a show at Open Eye Cafe in Carrboro that was great and refreshed in me all the reasons why I love to write songs and sing them in crowded coffee houses. Like, super love it. It was juicy and delicious, and drove me straight to an uncrowded coffee house today to work on my website, get more shows booked, and try to wrangle together some musicians to play with me in those upcoming shows. I’m also scheming about my summer and thinking about all the places I want to play at and travel to, and pondering whether or not Little Car will be up to task. She’s like the Little Engine That Could. It’s very sweet, and sadly literal when we’re chugging up a particularly steep hill. Alas.

In any case, I arrive in this new year armed with a great batch of musicy goals of all different varieties and am excited to see what this year holds and, frankly, would be thrilled if it were just as good as last year. So far so good. I hope everyone is well, and you’ll be hearing from me soon.

Mary Marry Me

A song I wrote and recorded yesterday in a dormer in my room.

Listen with lyrics