Driveway Conversations

Teni Rane

I wrote “Driveway Conversations” as a love song to those quiet, safe moments when time slowed down and it felt safe to share dreams, fears, hopes. It’s about grieving how busy life can steal that kind of softness, how we Read more
I wrote “Driveway Conversations” as a love song to those quiet, safe moments when time slowed down and it felt safe to share dreams, fears, hopes. It’s about grieving how busy life can steal that kind of softness, how we trade halos of streetlights for schedules and noise. The song is my hope that even if those moments feel behind us, we can still find our way back to honest conversation, real conversations despite the storm of life.

Arkansas

Teni Rane

I wrote this song from the ache of change. The in between when the place of home expands to include more than one physical location. It’s about restlessness, about chasing motion until the road finally turns me back Read more
I wrote this song from the ache of change. The in between when the place of home expands to include more than one physical location. It’s about restlessness, about chasing motion until the road finally turns me back towards something that feels like home. “Arkansas” becomes more than a place—it’s the pull of solid ground, of love and familiarity, calling me back as fast as I can go.
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Places

Teni Rane

No matter where I have been or how amazing the personal experience of that place or event or moment, I’ve always had a yearning to share it with someone. I’m learning to be more content sharing life with myself, and to be Read more
No matter where I have been or how amazing the personal experience of that place or event or moment, I’ve always had a yearning to share it with someone. I’m learning to be more content sharing life with myself, and to be more delighted by how I get to use each day. Even so, partnership and companionship as I move through life from place to place feel important and anchoring. It’s about being a wild, wandering, whole spirit and finding someone who runs beside me through each adventure that life brings.
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Goldenrod

Teni Rane

Penned at a time when a multitude of changes made life feel like every piece and part of me was up for re-negotiation, the collection of songs presented in “Goldenrod” explores what it means to make progress through life Read more
Penned at a time when a multitude of changes made life feel like every piece and part of me was up for re-negotiation, the collection of songs presented in “Goldenrod” explores what it means to make progress through life without erasing the lessons and emotions of the past and present. Holding space for knowing and loving myself for who I am and where I am, while also leaving room for all the places and versions of myself that have existed in my life up to now and will exist in the future. With imagery inspired largely by the shoulder season “as the summer fades into fall,” the conversations, stories, and emotions explored on the tracks of “Goldenrod” are relatable: change, loss, fear, identity, loss of identity, strength.

The in-between moments in the seasons are my favorites. There is a small magic when the heat of summer is fighting giving way to gusty autumn evenings and bright crisp mornings. As much as I enjoy the tension of those moments in nature, I am less of a fan of that tension in my own life. Change - even chosen, planned for change - is incredibly difficult for me. My fears always center on what else might change subsequently, and who or what I might lose. Explored through different landscapes and lenses, the tracks all come back to this: what does it mean to allow change to move through life without losing who we are?
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Don't Look Down (Head Up in the Clouds)

Teni Rane

When we are little we are encouraged to “dream big.” As adults, even our smallest aspirations towards a balanced, healthy, adventure-filled life have been squashed down. How many times are we told, either verbatim or Read more
When we are little we are encouraged to “dream big.” As adults, even our smallest aspirations towards a balanced, healthy, adventure-filled life have been squashed down. How many times are we told, either verbatim or essentially, to “get your head out of the clouds.” It’s easy to feel like what we are trying to build or create or be is “too much” for this world to handle. It’s common to feel left crowded into a box that works better for everyone around us but keeps us cramped and smaller than ourselves. It can feel scary to crawl out of that container and do the work to expand into who we are. “Don’t Look Down” strains against the gravitational pull of justifying every move we make towards every truth we feel in our bones about how our best life can look and what we are capable of creating.

Killing the Blues

Teni Rane

This song has lived in my life for as long as I can remember. The John Prine version was the first one that I knew. As I was writing for this album and arranging the stories that felt relevant to the arc, “Killing the Read more
This song has lived in my life for as long as I can remember. The John Prine version was the first one that I knew. As I was writing for this album and arranging the stories that felt relevant to the arc, “Killing the Blues” kept playing in my head. Of course the opening imagery was on point for the summer/fall landscape “Goldenrod” was living in, but also there is this melancholia of being herded away from familiarity and certainty. Like many songs, this one has its roots in love gone wrong - but loss and lost-love aren’t only in human relationships. Having lost some of ourselves and our identity to something that ended up taking everything and giving very little back is common in many realms of life. Then we are left to pick up and rebuild something of ourselves and our world. All while keeping a good face on it and pretending to have the world by the tail. For me, “Goldenrod” marks a rebuilding and a re-negotiation of what my life is and can be. “Killing the Blues” tells a piece of that story.