Songs

The idea for Heathen’s Cliff came to me while on my folklore walking tour of Reykjavik. The inspiration comes from the Icelandic folktale about the uninhabited island of Drangey off the north coast of Iceland. It’s a beautiful story that I encourage everyone to look into. In conjunction with the story, much inspiration for the song also came from the copious amounts of journaling and self-reflection I found myself up to while abroad. There were many times that I came to shocking and even frustrating revelations about myself, all of which found their way into this song by one way or another.

Also while on my folklore walking tour, my guide told a story about “voluntary ghosts.” Immediately that phrase struck me and I knew I had to write something about that. Just those two words marinated in my notebook for days before ideas started to form around them. While also loosely inspired by the folktale Deacon of Myrká, the song itself was my own interpretation of what I feel like it must mean to be someone’s voluntary ghost.

Yesterday’s Flowers was written while I was in the town of Akureyri. It was the first time that the reality of being alone set in—everywhere I went I saw families and couples and friends, all disembarked from the daily cruise ships, traveling together. It made me hyper aware of how by myself I was. While being physically alone was sometimes hard to grapple with while abroad, it showed me who from home was thinking about me and cared enough to keep in touch. Those relationships maintained over a long distance, as well as the feeling of watching myself change for the better the longer I travelled on my own, were the main inspiration behind this song.