When a Song Takes a Long Time 🍁
Late Summer’s Greetings!
As I’m checking in with you all today, it’s already beginning to feel like Autumn: misty mornings, spiderwebs, leaves beginning to fall — and I’m not mad about it. This is my favorite time of year, and as we cozy up in the recording studio to work on the new Celtic Christmas album between tours, I’m reminded of a very particular tune and memories of writing it.
In early Autumn 2020, we released a mysterious instrumental single. We wanted to capture this fleeting time of year — nights are getting longer, days are getting shorter — and it always feels like you’re chasing the sun.
However, the song didn’t just come together like magic. In fact, we worked on this tune off and on for nearly 2 years to get it right. When first arranged, it sounded more like this.
Chasing the Sun is what we call a “mona lisa tune”: both light and dark play around the edges. At first, it was trending too dark. We tried adding a happy fiddle tune. We tried medieval grooves, but nothing clicked. No matter what we tried — the bridge didn’t match the rest of the song.
So we gave up. After a huge tour and lots of traveling, we came back to the song and a simple, melodic bridge formed effortlessly in one afternoon. That simple change fixed the whole song, and it finally had the comforting, hopeful atmosphere we were searching for! Take a listen to the song without the lead parts here to get a sense of the arrangement behind the melody.
Lesson learned: we realized sometimes we need to give it a rest. Some songs take longer than others. It’s not giving up — but taking a break can be the right thing to do, both for the music and in life.
Chasing the Sun is now the first track on our newest album, Dragonfly, so you can listen to your heart’s content! We’re so proud of how it turned out. Relive the song and watch the official music video!
P.S. This blog post was taken from one of our emails to our subscribers. If you’d like more stories and musings like these, sign up here!
Gothard Sisters News and Updates
1. Fall Tour Dates
Tickets are up and now available for the Fall tour. Grab yours early!
Aug 17 | The Triple Door | Seattle, WA | Tickets
Sep 1 | Oak Harbor Music Festival | Oak Harbor, WA | Tickets
Sep 8 | Allerton Park Irish Fest | Monticello, IL | Tickets
Sep 15 | Failte Montana Irish Festival | Missoula, MT | Tickets
Sep 24 | Spanish Peaks Celtic Festival | La Veta, CO | Tickets
Sep 30 | Sea of Glass PAC | Tucson, AZ | Tickets
Oct 22 | Thumbnail Theatre | Snohomish, WA | Tickets
Oct 24 | Freight and Salvage | Berkeley, CA | Tickets
2. Celtic Christmas Album Updates
We’re reaching the finish line on the new Celtic Christmas music, but there are still a lot of steps to go! Until then, sign up for updates right here as we share snippets and sneak peeks as we lead up to the release.
3. New Playlist: Nostalgic Sunset Folk Music
Enjoy the last long evenings of the summer with this assortment of nostalgic folk songs and tunes, our newest playlist! Available on Spotify, Apple Music and Pandora.
That's it for now. Have a wonderful rest of your summer!
See you down the road,
Greta, Willow and Solana
The Gothard Sisters
P.S. You can watch a behind-the-scenes video for Chasing the Sun here.
P.P.S. Fun fact: Chasing the Sun was the first song recorded and mixed by our very own Willow Gothard! She learned the craft from our longtime engineer and mentor, Kent Harrison, and now does all the engineering for our albums, including the new Christmas album, coming out this Fall.
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