Essay

The chairs were organized in a circle in Ellis Ludwig-Leone’s music studio at Tónlistarskóli Ísafjarðar, the music school of Ísafjarðar. Outside the window, the view of the sea stretched all the way out, of course until its waves crashed against another fjord across the way. Each morning on my walk to the music school, whether I was alone or leaving from Heimabyggð Café with Claire Wellin after a coffee and chat, I needed to remind myself where I was exactly. How did I end up here? What am I doing? On this particular day, when 11 am rolled around, my purple journal came out and I was ready. It was Sorcha Richardson’s turn to teach our small yet devoted crew about her songwriting process…

Two weeks prior…

The idea for Heathen’s Cliff was never really supposed to be the beginning of a song at all. It was really just an interesting short story told to me by an odd, short man. One of my very first days after landing in Reykjavik, I signed myself up for a folklore walking tour, thinking to myself that it might be nice to hear other stories that come out of this place. I needed assurance that inspiration would strike at some point while I was there, and to hear successful and completed folk literature by Jon Arnason, native to this country, was cold hard proof that the landscape sparked creativity for another creative. Waiting to meet my walking tour guide was the first time I can ever remember being close to tears while traveling—I couldn’t believe how alone I was and how stupid I felt for going on this tour. Each party of the group finally located each other. Group is a strong word to describe what we were: me, our rugged, stout tour guide with an elfish beard and New York accent, and a mother-daughter pair from Scotland with matching, waist-long, red haircuts (the universe, once again, reminding me of how lonesome I was—this tour is something I would’ve done with my own mom).

I remember where I was standing when my guide first started talking about Heathen’s Cliff.

On our walk, we passed unassuming rocks that were allegedly home to families of trolls and a graveyard straight out of a fairytale while being fed the finest folktales Iceland had to offer. I made careful notes of each story that our guide told us in my back-pocket notebook, often pausing him to spell out long Icelandic words and clarify names. I remember where I was standing when my guide first started talking about Heathen’s Cliff. An instant visual came into mind, and I let myself travel there as the tale unfolded.

When confronted by the priest, the demon implored him to leave this corner of the island for him because “Even the evil ones need a place to live, after all!”

There is an island that juts out of the water off the north coast of Iceland, with sides so steep and rocky. While nearly impossible to inhabit for humans, birds settle in nicely along the cliffsides, building homes in the cracks of the rock. The eggs laid by these wild sea birds were crucial to the diet of Icelanders long ago, and although the task was dangerous and could result in death, the Icelanders would rappel down the side of the cliffs by rope to collect these eggs. It was said that there was a heathen who lived on the island, cutting the ropes of the egg collectors as they rappelled, causing them to fall to their deaths. Like most plights in medieval Iceland, the proposed solution was some sort of religious cleansing. The Icelanders called in a bishop to come bless the coastline and island with holy water, hoping to prevent further demonic incidents. As the story goes, he was lowered down along the cliffs and splashed the side with the holy water. The bishop had made it around the whole island, consecrating as he went, then he reached the final corner. As he was lowered down, he felt the tension in the rope start to loosen. He looked up in horror, as he realized there was a demon above him, slowly slicing through the rope. When confronted by the priest, the demon implored him to leave this corner of the island for him because “Even the evil ones need a place to live, after all!” With that, the priest was raised up by a single thread, leaving “Heathen’s Cliff” untouched and unconsecrated. Nobody dares rappel down the side of that cliff to this very day, which not only makes it the perfect place for evil to dwell, but proves to be a safe haven for wild sea birds, too.

The visual I imagined, standing on the side of the cliff, looking out into rainy clouds, fully aware and accepting of the dangers that came with being there, hearing the howling winds like the shrieks of a banshee, put my body in a numbing state of calmness. When I pictured myself standing there, I wasn’t afraid, I was relieved. Exhaustion released from my body through the ends of each of my limbs and the wind burned my eyes. I blinked and tears fell. Sweet relief on Heathen’s Cliff. A moment of sheer bliss amidst the surrounding, all-consuming chaos.

The group casually parted ways at the end of the tour and I began aimlessly wandering through Reykjavik, reliving the tales I had just been told. I was organizing ideas in my brain, so intently focused on what I had just heard, I didn’t realize the misty rain had begun to fall.

Living in a hostel for two weeks was a new experience for me. I am an only child, which should tell you how good I am at sharing bedroom space with other people. Growing up, I spent a lot of time in my room by myself. I love my room because it is a sacred space—as a kid, I decided on each detail of my room and tailored it perfectly to my liking. Each element of my bedroom is special to me in some way and contributes to the overall calmness of the atmosphere. Especially at 8:00 in the evening during the summers, when the warm light from the sun setting spills through my west-facing windows. It fosters bliss. Time feels completely and utterly frozen during those moments—I like to visit there in my mind when I’m feeling the weight of my thoughts taking over. My hostel room those weeks, however, is certainly the last place I will ever visit again in my mind. It was practically the exact opposite of my dreamy bedroom at home. I shared a room of three bunk beds with five other women, most of whom enjoyed activities like waking up at the ripe hour of 5 am each morning to entirely rearrange all their belongings, zipping and unzipping any bag they owned that had a zipper, and forgetting to shower. I really don’t mean to sound like a brat, but for my first ever room-sharing experience, this was truly next level.

These close quarters did not make for a great experimental music-making space, so I had to take my craft elsewhere. Somedays it took me to a local cafe, where I would sing lyrics in my head and spend hours writing (of course) in my journal. Others, it took me outside (when there was no rain), where I learned to be comfortable sitting on a bench or on the grass at a park, playing my guitar, feeling like a complete dork. It’s not like I really had a lot of options, so I put my pride aside and played my music at Klambratún, the local public park, just like my struggling artist ancestors who came before me.

For some reason, the wide open field filled with families playing disc golf felt more private than the rooms in my hostel. I laid out my rain shell on the wet grass and sat myself down, determined to write something. I had journaled so much over the last couple weeks, about myself and my feelings, so there was bound to be material for inspiration somewhere in those complicated webs of loneliness and normal teenage emotion.

Only a short walk from where I sat was the towering view of Hallgrímskirkja, the most famous church in town.

Looking out across the park, the view of Reykjavik's downtown skyline was visible. Only a short walk from where I sat was the towering view of Hallgrímskirkja, the most famous church in town. There were many mornings I sat on the bench to the right of Hallgrímskirkja’s wooden doors, writing in my journal at a feverish pace and repeatedly pushing windswept hair out of my face. There were other days where I sat on that bench observing each and every passerby, sometimes to the point where hours slipped by without my noticing and then half the day was gone. The church peered over my shoulder and into my revealing journal as I wrote, silently and without judgement.

The feelings I thought were all consuming and the strongest I had ever felt would end up being the ones I realized I had let fester for far too long.

So there I sat, pouring my heart out to the skyline. It was rare when I wrote this way, allowing myself to feel in real time, rather than marinating feelings of the past. It’s so funny because as I sit here now writing this essay, I reflect on all the past songs I’ve written that in the moment felt so powerful to me, yet retrospectively mean so much less now. The feelings I thought were all consuming and the strongest I had ever felt would end up being the ones I realized I had let fester for far too long. This isn’t me invalidating the heartbreak of my younger self or the resentment I held towards people in my life, but realizing that with time comes more life experience, and suddenly the world around you suddenly becomes bigger and filled with more things. More feelings than I had previously known to exist. More ground to be covered and on which to experience something that had once been unknown.

When the rain began to fall heavily in the park, I had a song that I really liked. That was enough for me that day.

*

A couple weeks and a few towns later, I took a forty-person jet to Isafjordur in the Northern part of Iceland. It’s a ridiculously small town and each person living there is an honest to God character. I could perfectly envision how each of their roles would play out in an imaginary sitcom about a microscopic, coastal town—the peppy mayor with a taste for songwriting, the always-smiling classical pianist with a knack for the accordion, the gaggle of teenagers roaming the streets at 2 AM (where they were possibly going all dressed up, I still wish I knew). Certainly I’d be the only person watching this show, but maybe it’s better that way.

I had no clue what I was in store for in Isafjordur. All I knew was that by some miracle of the internet, I had come across a webpage promoting a songwriting conference in Iceland’s glorious Westfjords. Without batting an eyelash, I paid for my spot and began planning how on Earth I would make it to that remote region. I knew the conference was exactly what I was going to need when the time came. What the heck, I thought, this isn’t something most people can say they’ve done. How many artists desperate to “find themselves” in nature and within their craft would’ve also miraculously come across this experience online? Fifty? Hundreds?

Back in the music school…

That brings us to the present—Tónlistarskóli Ísafjarðar. Our motley crew, four amateur writers and 4 “masters”, sat in a circle, ready to listen to Sorcha as she dished out songwriting secrets. My lips were glued shut, my pen feverishly marking up my purple journal, and when the other songwriters laughed at my state of concentration, my classic reply was “I’m just taking it all in.”

For as long as I’ve been writing music, I had never truly known the “right” way to do things. I never had a mentor or learned through proper training what writing music should really look like. When I unlocked the power of words as a young girl, I based my writing off of the songs I already admired. They gave me the structure—the harder I listened, the more I would realize what certain elements of the song did to enhance its listening experience and amplify its meaning.

I had long been under the impression that to create art, you needed to be in some kind of emotional distress.

I had long been under the impression that to create art, you needed to be in some kind of emotional distress. For example, you needed to be going through something sad to write a sad song. You needed to have your heart broken to write songs about being heartbroken. So I did. Over and over, I would lean into my sadness or allow my heart to be broken repeatedly. “At least it makes for a great song,” I would jokingly lament to my best friends and roommates.

“Pull on the thread.”

Sorcha wholeheartedly disagreed with that sentiment. And the way she writes music will probably be ingrained in my process subconsciously forever. “Pull on the thread.” Those four words changed the entirety of the way I even think about music. Someone less versed in what it takes to write a song might roll their eyes at me, perplexed by the seeming self-evidence of that phrase. For me, it began opening doors in my mind. A song truly is just a collection of moments and feelings that the artist is able to thread together, like a garland of complex human experiences. From Sorcha’s lips to the page, my purple journal read “start with small moments, pull on that thread.”

*

Have you ever walked alone at night in a fjord in a town where the sun never dips below the horizon line? The air was cold and dry, and since it was somehow the middle of the night, your eyelids were heavy and burning, desperate to close and sleep? Have you ever allowed yourself to feel ultimate boredom, strolling aimlessly through suburban neighborhoods with no intention of doing anything else? Like that task was exactly what you were made for in the moment? Have you ever been caught in the rain in the middle of the night, forced to seat yourself in a closing restaurant where a cute waiter brought you water and laughed with you while asking you what you could’ve possibly been doing out in the night, all alone, without an umbrella? Was there clearly rain in the forecast? Does he remember saying that, I wonder?

Continuing to live exactly where your feet are at any given moment allows these moments to live in your brain in the years forever after they happen. They’re filed away in cabinets, and thanks to your presence in the moment, they are just as clear as the day they occurred. You remember the feelings that went along with them, the phone call to Elyse to recount it instant by instant, the goofy smile that creeps its way into your expression, due to biological phenomenon alone, just by thinking of those times.

To my shock, they loved the song.

The song that was slowly becoming Heathen’s Cliff began to take shape even more so in the practice rooms at the music school. I remember texting Sorcha and Bridie on WhatsApp to come to my studio and listen to something dumb I was working on—I was finally ready for virgin ears to experience Heathen’s Cliff. They listened and I was more than mortified. Here I was, standing earnestly in front of two musicians I admired so dearly, performing my own music and opening myself up to genuine criticism. To be honest, I wanted them to tear it apart. I was almost looking for them to dislike what I had done, just to remind me that I would never be anything more than an amateur at what I do. In my mind, there was such a gap between what I could accomplish versus what a “professional” musician made. I could chase that dream, that title, but reality was there to remind me that I was not capable of creating at that level. To my shock, they loved the song. They complimented my writing, my voice, the way I told stories. Without a doubt, I know my face turned the same color as the 99 balloons you hear about in Nena’s hit song. I was simply flattered. With some reorganization and lyrical workshopping, Sorcha and Bridie left their mark on a song that was entirely my own and a manifestation of years of learning what it meant to be a songwriter. As if this dream collaboration experience couldn’t be any better, both musical geniuses hopped on the electric guitar and piano, as if it were second nature and improvised alongside me as we played the song again in its entirety. In my mind, we weren’t in the humble upstairs studios of the music school, we were onstage all together, maybe at Lollapalooza or Austin City Limits, performing as an elite band with a sea of fans, pumping their fists and screaming along. I was scheduled to play at the local coffee shop later, and I knew Heathen’s Cliff had come along just the way I wanted it to. Sorcha and Bridie asked if they could play with me on the song during the performance. My jaw quite literally hit the floor of the room. Could they play with me? I couldn’t even comprehend the question, as I rapidly struggled to form a resounding yes!

And so it went—the three of us debuting my song at the cafe. I felt like a fucking star.

*

Leaving Iceland felt like waking up from one of those dreams where you were able to control everything happening around you, so much so that when you wake up, you’re convinced those conversations of your subconscious truly happened.

When I got home, I recorded so many demos of myself playing Heathen’s Cliff over and over until I could perform the song like muscle memory.

When I got home, I recorded so many demos of myself playing Heathen’s Cliff over and over until I could perform the song like muscle memory. I was so proud of myself, and I enjoyed that the song was all my own. Well, it belonged to me and all the ears I was lucky enough to share it with in Isafjordur. But I was ready for it to belong to other people, too. I was ready to pull on the thread and see where it would lead me even further down the line. I played it in my car for my friends and in the kitchen for my parents. I texted it to classmates across the country and dropped it in the inbox of Professor Mellissa Martinez (who would like me to remember her in the case that I “become a famous singer,” but truly how could I ever forget her.) Even before my adventures to Iceland, I pulled on a thread that would eventually take me and Heathen’s Cliff to New York City.

*

There was a way for creatives to make it out there after college, and he was the living proof I needed.

My friend Chard Bershtein is a whiz at engineering. Not mechanical or electrical, though, because rather than building structures, Chard builds music from the ground up. He is an audio engineer at Chelsea Studios in New York City and he is damn good at what he does. As a recent Claremont McKenna alum, he jumped at the opportunity to mentor a lost and confused musician, and had been a huge part of the reason why I stayed so consistent with my music even while at school—I knew based on the thread he was able to pull that musical success could be born and nourished even in a place like CMC, where it is hard to find. Recently, he moved to the big city and started to pursue his creative passions everyday when he stepped into the office. There was a way for creatives to make it out there after college, and he was the living proof I needed. Chard offered his professional music services for my project, to make my songs sound like the real deal, and I felt like a kid in a candy store. We began arranging when I could come to New York after my Icelandic travels to record with the full on professional set up—I felt myself being catapulted into stardom already. What a feeling!

Touching down in New York City this summer brought back that familiar feeling of the start of something exciting, even when the residual smoke blown in from forest fires in Canada hangs low in the sky, turning the sun into an eerie, apocalyptic orange. I met up with Richard to talk business—but of course, one cannot talk business or be remotely productive without fuel and a sweet treat. One L’Industrie slice and Cultured frozen yogurt later, we were ready to create art. Later that weekend at Chelsea Studios, we took not one, but two coffee breaks. There was plenty of strolling and gossiping and catching up about CMC. Chard explained to me that before doing any creative work, he needs to put himself in the right mood. He needs to fuel himself with food that he loves, catch up with his friends, and usually grab a sweet treat before putting nose to the grindstone. This way, he explains, he can put himself in the right mentality to create with other people and not be distracted by the little things.

Stepping into Chelsea Studios early on an early Sunday morning in July was like entering the womb of musical creation.

Stepping into Chelsea Studios early on an early Sunday morning in July was like entering the womb of musical creation. Chard and I walked around, flipping light switches and turning on monitors, and it felt like I was gently waking up a music-making giant. This was the place where so many found artistic triumph, would my name be the next one on the list? We spent all afternoon laying down vocals, experimenting with different instruments, discussing the ins and outs of music production, and really just putting our all into the song. It became just as much Chard’s as it was mine. Working in such a professional environment totally intimidated me at first, but as the day went on, I knew that I belonged there. I was able to completely relax and get into my creative flow.

This industry used to feel so far removed from anything I could ever possibly accomplish, and I felt like I was destined to be an outsider forever. My experience at Chelsea taught me that anyone with passion, anyone who was willing to pull on that thread no matter where it went, could accomplish their biggest dreams. And it sounds corny to write it down like that, but the truth is, the people working in music now are there because they cared enough to work hard for it.

*

Returning to Claremont at the end of summer didn’t feel like the bookend on this chapter that I had hoped it would be. So many things still felt unfinished, probably because they were. I was still writing, still coming up with new ideas everyday. Each time I went down the rabbit hole of reminiscing on my summer, I emerged having thought of something I never realized or having reworked an entire concept. There was so much to think about—how was I to put into words the way that going abroad changed the way I wrote music? How could I unpack the things I learned about myself and writing songs in a way that was digestible for a reader?

I have undergone creative metamorphosis.

Writing and producing Heathen’s Cliff felt like the perfect culmination of all these things: a concrete example of how my writing, world view, and self were all changed. Even when it didn’t feel noticeable at first, the person I have become since being Iceland is entirely new. I have undergone creative metamorphosis. There is a new purpose behind my words that I had to discover for myself. What I sought was to break my conventional mode of artistry because I knew there had to be more to it than just what I knew. Zooming out and escaping your normal routine is what contributes to that new perspective, and once you experience it for yourself, it cannot be undone.

So maybe it wasn’t that I saw an old church and a bunch of rocky islands and immediately felt called to write Heathen’s Cliff. In all honesty, I don’t believe that nature alone changed my perspective in the way I had anticipated, rather the place in its entirety, each element working in tandem with the others, had an unexpectedly profound effect on my writing process. If I had to try and summarize in words the changes I felt after being in Iceland, I would say that I’m now more comfortable than ever with simply living in the moment. I allow ideas to flow to me and write them down without second thoughts. I observe the world around me even closer as it unfolds, all while keeping mental notes. Above all else, it took me flying to a completely new country, immersing myself deeply in the natural world, and spending endless hours with my craft to realize that in order to feel the inspiration I so desired, I had to allow myself to feel that way. Inspiration comes when there is a willingness to be changed, and I can now confidently say that I will forever be willing.