About That Song #118
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
In the 118th edition of this series, I was delighted to chat with Rachel Ries, a huge talent with a multitude of projects under her belt! We talked about influential songs, experiences and artists as well as her songwriting process and songs from her most recent release.
Rachel Ries with Her Crooked Heart. Photo credit: Nate Ryan.
Sarah: Hi Rachel Ries! The creator of Her Crooked Heart! The Choir Founder (Kith & Kin Chorus)! The Tiny House builder! The dedicated bringer-together of people, and songs, and beautiful things! Rachel, over the last few years, I’ve had the deep joy of getting to share in song and coffee and conversation with you. I’m a big fan of the music you make, and the way you plant and grow community and beauty.
You are spending your November in residency at Icehouse in Minneapolis in celebration of your many collaborations—one of which is about to be offered in recorded form, with the upcoming release of Live at Hive—a five-song EP recorded in the waning months of 2019. This feels like a lovely moment to learn a bit more about your musical journey—specifically the songs that brought you to where you are today. Do you remember the song you heard that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Rachel: Honestly, no—I don’t remember THE song that triggered it for me! At 13, I got rebellious and traded the violin for the more edgy viola and started teaching myself guitar because I wanted to be heard, but I knew I needed to make it “pretty” to be heard. Guitar felt like the best vehicle. Blind Melon’s “Change” was the first song I remember tuning my ears and hands to. It was a holy, revelatory moment when I realized my Suzuki-trained ear could recognize what voicing; what chord positions were being played and that I COULD PLAY IT TOO.
But the songs that told me what kind of a songwriter I wanted to be (and by that I mean: how I wanted to make people feel) were “Nightswimming” (R.E.M.), “Round Here” (Counting Crows), and everything Jeff Buckley and Nick Drake. Those two artists also hugely influenced my guitar tendencies.
Sarah: Ooh! Your answer might be my new favorite playlist. Also—what a joy to have that moment of “wait! I can do this! I can make these sounds!” Once you began writing, did you feel like a writer immediately? It took me a few years of writing before I believed it—was there a song that gave you that “a-HA! I AM a songwriter!” moment? Tell us about that song.
Rachel: I made a little demo (literal) tape in high school. Age 17. Went into a studio in Sioux Falls and everything! That whole process—and the affirmation I received—probably made me feel like a songwriter more than the songs themselves—which is a little sad! External vs. internal validation and all … But one song on that tape, the pretentiously titled “Untitled B,” stands out as a foreshadowing of style. Fingerpicked, kind of spare, a vocal and guitar line that weave in and out, a minor dance. An evocative melody, a circuitous phrase that doesn’t shy away from tension (but does dole out resolve). It was a weird little tearjerker. Which I’d be happy to have inscribed on my tombstone …
Sarah: I’m sending 17-year-old Rachel all the kudos for making that demo. I think it’s no small feat to walk away from a first recording project feeling affirmed. Recording is a vulnerable enterprise, and I imagine there are many ways to walk out of that experience, and I’m glad yours led you to making more music. In 2005, you released your debut album, For You Only. Before we leap into your current project, I’m wondering if we could touch on the song that begins that album—“Lonely Spires.” The song is striking—a cascading melody, a lyric that feels immediate and intimate—can you tell us about that song?
Rachel: Man, that song was a concert staple for yeeeaaars. I was in my first year of living in Chicago and was making music a lot and cobbling together my existence as you do at 23 (or always). I was nanny to a darling infant named Dakota whose mom came from my same tiny Mennonite town in South Dakota. I kept a guitar at their house and would play music for Dakota a lot—to lull him to sleep but also to entertain us both. (I really love babies, truly, but they are a little bit boring, no?) I remember sitting him in his high chair one day, and I was trying out different melody lines and progressions to see how he reacted. What with the gurgling and cooing, he seemed to really dig what became the opening line of “Lonely Spires,” so I went with it.
Thing is, I have absolutely no clue what inspired the lyrics! I mean, the song seems to be about death and what we do with the waiting time until they come back in some other form. But what inspired it? Hard to say. Much of what I still write starts from intuition and stream of consciousness until I hit something I just KNOW in my bones to be true. And that one just rang true—Dakota and I both agreed.
Sarah: Well, thanks, Dakota! Babies can be incredibly discerning with music. No songs are the correct song except THE correct song. I most certainly have that experience—a baby’s seeming-to-be-pleased with a melody will give me the fortitude to repeat and repeat and repeat something in a way that no other audience could.
After releasing three albums under your name, in 2017, you began releasing music as Her Crooked Heart. Was there a song that you wrote where you knew—AH, THIS is a new entity?
Rachel: With each successive album, it was less of a solo affair. And by the time I made my third (2014’s Ghost of a Gardener), being classified as a “solo singer-songwriter” rankled me. I was a band. We were a band. Me, Ari, Evan. I thought and wrote in a band frame of mind. I desperately wanted to come up with a name that wasn’t the one my parents gave me, but no great ideas came, and ticktock, music’s gotta get out. So I remained Rachel Ries (rhymes with grease), but the spirit of that record is Her Crooked Heart.
Sarah: “I drove away far from the lake, I found the farmer’s daughter, we could’ve been sisters, if I were humble”—so begins “Holiest Day,” a song first recorded for Ghost of a Gardener, then revisited on your current release, Live at Hive. Could you tell us about that song? Where did it begin, and what led you to record it again, five years later?
Rachel: Uff da. That song was actually first recorded and released in 2012 on The Laurel Lake EP, a darling release that had all hand-sewn fabric sleeves.
Sarah: WHOA. What a beautiful undertaking, and also, WHOA.
Her Crooked Heart. Photo credit: Janet Eckles.
Rachel: Like a mania I sewed 400-ish, all numbered. I was holed away in a drafty house on a lake in Eastern Tennessee, lent to me by the mom of a fan after I put out a call. In a few months I was going to be on the road for the better part of a year with one of my besties, Anaïs Mitchell, and since I knew I was going to open a bunch of the shows, I needed to have something new to sell. And I also knew I would grow weary of being in Anaïs's shadow, so I wanted to a) remind myself of my own value as an artist and b) have a batch of songs I could then use to seed a new studio record after that tour cycle ended. (That album became Ghost of a Gardener.)
The grocery store options were abysmal in that part of the world and so, with my Anabaptist radar cranked, I found my way to an Amish farm one day where I procured cheese, vegetables, eggs, raw milk (sorry) and some stilted conversations. I wore a skirt and knit cap to be respectful. They were my people after all. We were related, literally, if you go back a few generations. I was raised a modern, worldly Mennonite—electricity and all!—but THESE were my people. Dress me up different and I could fit right in. “I know all the hymns” after all. I went home from that first awkward farm visit and wrote this song. I was so bone-tired of the hustle and longing of my life. Of always wanting more more more. I just wanted what they had: enough.
And that song is evergreen. It’s never not true. It’s never not holy. And when it came time for the original iteration of Her Crooked Heart to tour, “Holiest Day” was never not on the setlist. It’s one of those songs that never falls flat on stage. I can trust it to always hit its mark—which is The Heart, duh. So when the four of us were deciding what to record at Hive that day in Dec 2019, it was an obvious and beloved choice.
Sarah: It’s a beauty. The new EP features the four members of Her Crooked Heart on four reimaginings of previously released songs, as well as “Adderall”—a song from your live show that you’d never recorded. The song begins with the light skip of the opening lyric “I took Adderall today …” and leads to the deeper confession of “then I rise, oh I rise, and I start running, oh, I start running, I’m always running.” Can you tell us about THAT song?
Rachel: Well … I’ve never been on brain drugs. But, considering some family history, I was getting curious: maybe just maybe my brain would “behave better than before” on drugs, too?? So one day I acquired some Adderall from a very safe and trusted source and took a deep breath and popped the experiment. I went about my day—which happened to be in the midst of a Song-a-Day challenge: an entire month of writing one song a day, with accountability from friends. I remember very little about the day except for a sense of my mind feeling crispy at the edges and, thankfully, I have a song to show for it.
The song shows my abiding love for an outro, gobs of crunchy harmony, and for taking one small moment (popping a pill) and exploding it into something as big as life: a song about endless hustling (running) and caring so deeply for what I do with my time here: “before I became a woman / what did I care for your world? / before I became a woman / who cares so much for her word.”
Sarah: The “caring so deeply” you reference above—it comes across so poignantly in your writing, in the way you release music (hello, hand-sewn CD sleeves), in your organizing of singers and writers. To my witnessing, there is art in every bit of what you do. Brava. Do you have any upcoming Midwest shows where we might hear you sing that song?
Rachel: You know it! We will definitely be singing that one on Thursday Dec. 3 at Icehouse. That will be the culmination of a four-week Icehouse residency: the release of Live at Hive, and a reunion show for my beloved OG Her Crooked Heart: Siri Undlin, Hilary James, Adelyn Strei, Hannah Hebl, and myself.
Sarah: Reader—trust me, don’t miss that one! One last question—2027 is just around the corner; I’m wondering what is coming up for Her Crooked Heart in the new year?
Rachel: We’ve been in the studio this year working on a new record, and man oh man do I feel lit up and proud of this one! Ten years since I was last properly working on a studio record, and those 10 years of full living and growth and craft show! The album will come out mid to late 2027. I’m just in love. A stellar crew of players and humans: old collaborators and new.
Sarah: Oh, that makes me happy. I can’t wait to hear it. Congratulations, Rachel! And thank you so much for stopping by About That Song. Wishing you all the best with the residency, the new EP, and the forthcoming album.
Be sure and check out one of Rachel’s afternoon residency shows at Icehouse in Minneapolis! Every one is packed with special treats. On Nov. 22 Rachel will be joined by Alec Watson, Liz Draper, Toby Ramaswamy, Hilary James and special guests as they unveil unreleased bangers from the new Her Crooked Heart studio project. Tickets are just $15 in advance!
Listen to “Ghost (Live at Hive)”
Live at Hive EP Credits
Rachel Ries • lead vocals, electric guitar
Hilary James • cello, vocals
Adelyn Strei • electric bass, synth, vocals
Siri Undlin • drum triggers, vocals
Ryan Mach • drum programming
Brian Joseph • recording and mixing engineer
Jon Neufeld • mastering engineer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
