6 years ago I had a chance to continue my soccer career for a season after finishing my university eligibility (go Razorbacks!) on a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea called Gotland. It’s a very beautiful place and I enjoyed so much having the chance to be there and meet new folks and learn to love soccer again. At the same time I was really quite

6 years ago I had a chance to continue my soccer career for a season after finishing my university eligibility (go Razorbacks!) on a Swedish island in the Baltic Sea called Gotland. It’s a very beautiful place and I enjoyed so much having the chance to be there and meet new folks and learn to love soccer again. At the same time I was really quite homesick and I struggled with the dichotomy of feeling really lonely and sad while I was having this incredible, once-in-a-lifetime experience of playing semi-pro soccer abroad. I felt so guilty because often the narrative in our world is “you should be so happy” in whatever experience or place you are in - especially if it is something like getting to live and play a sport abroad. In a lot of ways I was really lucky to know that my family was going to have a chance to come visit and that my then-partner-now-spouse was also going to have a chance to visit. I was counting down the days!! The chorus of the song bubbled out first (I was going to travel to the mainland to meet Jonathan in Stockholm and then travel back to the island with him) and I was really hesitant with it because I thought “well it’s totally silly to put Swedish in one of my songs - I barely know ANY Swedish.” After a while I allowed myself to lean into it and the feelings of distance and time separating me from the homey and familiar feeling of being wrapped in my best friend’s arms and accepted playing with the language. Even though the song has a longing and melancholy note and feel to it, it became a really sweet and amazing memory of my individual experience there and also our time there together. I’ve since gotten a bit better at Swedish and have enjoyed learning more of the language over time. In the chorus of the song there are two simple phrases - jag älskar dig means “I love you” and kommer du is a question: “are you coming?” So you get a song and a Swedish lesson :)

Just like every aspect of life, snow is fleeting. It comes in a fresh blanket one day and stays for just a little while. Even when you feel like the brown slush in the roads will be around forever, slowly, slowly, slowly, it disappears. And then one day it is spring and then summer and snow seems like the furthest possible thing away from the day.

Just like every aspect of life, snow is fleeting. It comes in a fresh blanket one day and stays for just a little while. Even when you feel like the brown slush in the roads will be around forever, slowly, slowly, slowly, it disappears. And then one day it is spring and then summer and snow seems like the furthest possible thing away from the day. Fall comes back around and if you are patient, the snow will come again in the winter. In Tennessee it doesn’t snow all that much. We get a dusting a few times a year and some years we get lucky enough to get that full, crisp, white blanket that softens the world and quiets the streets and slows down the rush of everyday traffic. It comes and then it goes - melting back into the world. Tennessee Snow buries the rush of the holiday season under fresh snowfall and spends time enjoying a slower moment making memories and promising to hold onto the love of the season even when the snow and the season fade away.

Sometimes songs fight you. This one did for a while. I must not have been ready to hear what I was trying to say when I first started on the idea. With a leftover studio day coming up and all the tracking for Cozy Inside and Rosemary & Evergreen complete, I decided to go back to the “unfinished” folder and see what ideas I might be able to coax into the “finished” folder. Tennessee Snow came together on Sunday evening, tracking was started on Monday, and on Tuesday of that same week we were moving into mixing and production. I love the big, echoing, atmospheric instrumentation that gives Tennessee Snow the muted yet forward sound of listening to any sound on a snow covered day.

I love sharing what I see and what sticks with me about a moment or an activity. In our little household, Jonathan and I celebrate something called “Tree Day” - this isn’t Arbor Day, or National Tree Week. This is a holiday that we’ve made up for ourselves. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we go and pick out a live tree, we decorate the house,

I love sharing what I see and what sticks with me about a moment or an activity. In our little household, Jonathan and I celebrate something called “Tree Day” - this isn’t Arbor Day, or National Tree Week. This is a holiday that we’ve made up for ourselves. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we go and pick out a live tree, we decorate the house, trim the tree, drink hot chocolate and listen to holiday records all day. Lights and ornaments and stockings come down from the attic and the annual campaign to make our cats disinterested in the live indoor tree begins. Rosemary & Evergreen is about this day, our day, “Tree Day”. I’m learning that it is important to take a stand in how I create and allow rituals to frame and direct the passing of a year. Rosemary & Evergreen and my other holiday songs are the result of claiming and stating what is important to me around the holiday season - being with the ones I love, creating a cozy atmosphere to bolster me through the coldest parts of the year, and enjoying the delights that only the wintertime and the holiday season can bring to life.

An upbeat and swinging song, Rosemary & Evergreen had some sonic room to play. Vocal layering and percussive movement helped craft a well-driven song that knows when to fill out and when to thin out. Written during and after Tree Day 2020!