About That Song: Vanessa Lively
About That Song #109
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.
For our 109th edition, I was excited to connect with Jill Andrews, a singer-songwriter primarily based in Austin, TX whose music is eclectic in style—telling the truth wherever it goes—to talk about one of the songs that inspired her creative beginnings as well as the inspiration for some of her own songs.
Vanessa Lively. Photo credit: Nicola Gell.
Sarah: Hi Vanessa! I first met you in the glorious, dusty Kerrville Folk Festival heat, back in 2018. You are a singer, songwriter, painter, graphic designer, non-profit founder, and mother. Recently you released a brand-new album, Mirroring the Wildness, which is “forged in community and rooted in personal experience.” In celebration of that release, you’re headed to the Midwest for a handful of shows. This feels like such a lovely opportunity to learn more about you and the songs that have shaped the path of your musical journey.
Do you remember the song you heard that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Vanessa: OK, the song that I heard that made me want to be a songwriter might have been “Virtue” by Ani DiFranco on her album Up Up Up Up Up Up. That entire album just floored me. The variety of song themes and styles and the emotional arc of the album. But that song “Virtue” just really felt so full of energy and fire and a kind of feisty attitude that I just absolutely loved and completely felt drawn to.
Sarah: I’m certain Ani DiFranco brought us many, many more songwriters, by virtue of her songs. 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?
Vanessa: Gosh, no. I feel like I stumbled my way through song after song after song—trying on different ways of saying what I wanted to say. I had come from the background of painting, and words were not my paintbrush, so it took me a while to find my poetic voicing and the voice that just felt authentically my own, where I gave myself permission to be a little bit more poetic and abstract and not the straightforward songwriter that spells out a story.
My approach is much more like my paintings, which have elements of realism, and then I pull the painting into the abstract and into a dreamlike landscape because I want people to sit more in a dreamlike state, and the energy behind it is more about sort of like a calming, healing energy that I want to fill every work of art that I do with.
But I did have a few songs that made me feel like I was a songwriter. In fact, two of the very first songs that I wrote—“Let Me Rise” and “Ode to the Sun”—felt like my voice very early on, and when I was singing and writing them, I could feel a connection that was something that I definitely clung to. I knew I was on my way, and I just kept going back to those songs as my guiding light and compass. That’s particularly evident on my 2014 album Return to Waves, which I recently revisited on the Back Catalog Listening Party podcast.
Sarah: The feeling that something you write is in your voice is such a powerful affirmation, and I’m so glad it guided you toward … more songwriting. Speaking of your voice, and that album … “I hear my voice, it’s a thousand whispers blowing through the trees like a gentle wind. I see my face, it’s a still reflection in the quiet waters where the river bends. And I, I am a song …” Before we get to your latest release, I wanted to learn a little bit more about this gorgeous tune from Return to Waves. The melody offers a sturdy sense of grounding as the production grows and grooves—inviting the listener to consider that they may be a song, too. Can you tell us about that song?
Vanessa: “I Am A Song” emerged out of a quiet retreat that I made for myself, where I just sat in silence and reflection as I set out to complete a lot of partially finished songs, but instead of finishing any of the dozens of songs that were sitting there, I ended up writing a song from start to finish while staring at the water and the trees and listening to the birds and feeling this beautiful oneness with nature and with everything and everybody.
Sarah: I just came from facilitating a songwriting retreat, so I’m fascinated by how we might approach such a time and space with an intention—and then the art comes along and declares itself in whichever way it wishes.
Vanessa: I wanted to capture that sense of how songs and art can be vibrant and bold and quiet and soft and loud and expansive but also so simple and also so complex. They can wear many different outfits and can be painted with different palettes and styles. But I loved thinking about myself and anyone being able to be all of these things and to kind of try to write a song that encompasses the multitudes that we all are, going from the most quiet, tender, soft moments to the loudest, wild, raging moments, just like nature.
Vanessa Lively. Photo credit: Nicola Gell.
Sarah: Oh yes, I think you did that beautifully.
Congratulations on your new album, Mirroring the Wildness. I was struck by the slithery, evocative melody on “Canaries,” which features a little Minnesota royalty on drums (hey, JT Bates!)—what can you tell us about that song?
Vanessa: “Canaries” was written in the wake of a tragedy. I had just learned about the Uvalde, TX school shooting. My dad worked in Uvalde for many years, so it was a town that I would go visit regularly. And yet, it just was another school shooting—a tragedy involving these beautiful, innocent children and teachers. I’m a mother of two young boys, and my heart was just so broken. I just sat in a tree weeping.
But at that time, I was also getting ready to see so many of my friends that were all coming to the Kerrville Folk Festival, including folks that hadn't traveled to be in Texas for many years. I felt stuck between this joy of reuniting with all of my beautiful friends and then the sorrow of this tragedy. And in that space, I sat with that very complex tension and realized how beautiful our job is as artists and creators, poets, painters, writers, songwriters, musicians, where we are the feelers. We’re the sensitive creatures going through the world and asking why things are, how they are, and crying out for a change. I was drawing a parallel between us and canaries that are sent down in the coal mine, using our voices to cry out when things are wrong.
I wrote this song before a lot of the events in recent years unfolded, where, back when I made a video for this particular music lyric video for Canaries, I had to find stock footage to put together for protesters in the streets. Had I waited two more years, I would have had a phone full of protest images and photographs and videos of my own because that's the time we're living in right now. And I’m glad that we as humans are taking to the streets and screaming and crying and saying enough is enough to the many things that have gotten far from okay in our world. “Canaries” is a meditation and a mantra, more than a story song, but I’m hoping that within the melody, people feel some of that emotion that I was sitting in.
Sarah: That song is quite the generous offering, Vanessa—thank you. You recorded the lush and magical “Mi Grito” at the lush and magical Blue Rock Studios in Wimberley, TX. Featuring your mother on vocals, and your co-writer LUCIRI on saxophone, the song hit my ears and instantly took me away from my Midwestern summer day to somewhere far more … enchanting. Can you tell us about that song?
Vanessa: “Mi Grito” is about finding my own voice, my own unique cry or call—like an animal. It’s about encountering myself in my solitude and going on a journey to find and encounter myself; it’s the hero’s journey—like in Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist. I wrote that song on the heels of so many changes in my life—becoming a mother and splitting from a partner whom I was with for almost 22 years, had kids with, and made music with. These changes have been so wildly challenging to the very core and center of my being, and yet I know that I have remained intact.
The song is in Spanish because I often feel I can express different parts of myself in Spanish that I just can’t access in English, accessing a little bit more of my primal self—probably because I learned the language as a child from my grandparents. It’s about going to the top of the mountain, letting go of all of my sadness, and finding my ferocity, my strength, my fire, my wildness.
Sarah: Thank you for sharing some of that journey with us—both on your album, and in this conversation. Do you have any upcoming Midwest shows where we might hear you sing THAT song (or any of the other songs we’ve mentioned today)?
Vanessa: I do have shows coming up in the Midwest, and I will sing that song and maybe all of the songs that we’re talking about here, because I think those are great choices! Of course, I’ll be singing all the songs from the new album as well and will be bringing Ben Bedford with me, who is also featured on the album. JT Bates will join us in Minneapolis too! I got him to play on every track on the record, and I absolutely loved working with him. JT first caught my ear on an album by an artist named WRYN, which I completely fell in love with. I was very drawn into the drummer and had to research who this drummer was and find them. So I did.
Sarah: I think that happens a lot with JT!
Vanessa: I’m so excited to share these new songs in person with anyone able to come make these shows in Minnesota, especially the July 15th release show at Icehouse with Sadie Gustafson-Zook and Mother Banjo!
Sarah: Icehouse is such a dream, and that lineup is fantastic! A bonus for readers: Ben, Sadie, and Mother Banjo have all been previous guests of About That Song! Wishing you a fantastic summer, Vanessa!
Everyone should snag their tickets to see Vanessa Lively’s release show on July 15th at Icehouse in Minneapolis with Sadie Gustafson-Zook and Mother Banjo!
Listen to “Mi Grito”
Mirroring The Wilderness Album Credits
Recorded at Coastal Bend Studio (Rockport, TX)
Engineered by John Macy at Coastal Bend
Drums recorded & engineered by JT Bates
Additional recording at Cedar Creek Studio by Andre Moran
Mixed by Dave Sinko
Mastered by David Glasser
Artwork by Vanessa Lively
Vanessa Lively - voice/guitar/piano
Ben Bedford - voice/guitar/banjo
Paul Curreri - bass
John Macy - pedal steel
JT Bates - drums
Andrew Pressman - bass
Mark Williams - cello
Colin Brooks - dobro
Mark Addison - bass
Carrie Rodriguez - fiddle
Luciri Nazario - saxophone
Ben Jones - bass
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.
