Writing About Music

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the collection of works I’ve been writing during the summer of 2019. My name is Carly King, I am 22 years old and a recent graduate of the University of Denver. I consider myself a songwriter, a musician, a poet, an outdoor enthusiast but to encompass it all, a storyteller. In the following two works, An Evolution on Bahamas & Wherever She Goes, I offer insight into a playlist of one of my favorite bands through a track by track annotation and prove the importance and influence one album could potentially have if and when I’m stranded on an island. I chose to revisit these artists and their music for my final portfolio has a tribute to their common thread. Both artists are currently represented under the same record label Jack Johnsons,  Brushfire Records. 

My portfolio deeply reflects my personal experiences with music. In An Evolution on Bahamas , I speak to the loyalty I’ve had throughout the past 15 years listening to their music, regardless of my stage in life. However, it is in Wherever She Goes, where I truly let the audience in on the most intimate parts of my life, my father. Music for me is so attached to who I am that it is impossible to speak on it without connecting it to my own experiences.

Since I am so personally connected to music and also have a background in it, when approaching music writing I try to do so carefully. Finding the balance between connecting with the audience and telling them is what I’ve always found most difficult as a writer. It was actually Lester Bangs, prose on Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks that inspired me to dig deeper both personality and thematically. Rather than focusing on the balance between telling and connecting, Bangs taught me to focus on the subject, the music, regardless of my balance conviction. Works like his and many other music writers we read during this course will continue to inspire me in the future. 

In nearly every humanities-based class I’ve taken over the past four years at DU,  Professors toy and probe their students with the limits, notions, and questions behind one’s culture. However, although every culture is different and unique in its own way, there is one thing that always makes its way onto a week in the syllabus. Whether it be the Latinx class I took Junior year or the Globalization course Sophomore year, and even the People Places and Landscape class I recall stopping in every now and then as a Freshman, I’ve been taught that music has a place in every culture. Furthermore, in the past few weeks taking this ASEM I’ve come to the understanding that music is not only a part of every culture but is the essence of the culture itself.

The experience gained in this class was beyond useful both professionally, moving forward, and for the soul. It has been a pleasure exposing myself to the written world behind the music. Thank You.

XX

Carly King

In line leading into the Belly Up were people ranging from 20-50-year-olds, nearly every race and economic status were accounted for, from dreads to Dolce & Gabbana. I could smell the Mary Jane that clung to almost every person as they approached and waited behind me. It was a cool summer night in Aspen and it was time for Toots. 

We piled into the underground club. The anticipation was tangible. Everywhere I looked I heard wishful whispers “I hope they play look in the mirror”, “You think they’ll  be super old” “ I wonder if he’s as good as was 10 years ago.”  Toots, the leader of his counterparts the Maytals, was now 69 but had been touring on and off for the majority of his career. Knowing this I was no skeptic, their music moves and groves and that’s something I know to be true. Although their charted success surrounds the 60’s growing up with a single mom and a Jamaican housekeeper, I dubbed their music timeless

Fittingly, I purchased a rum and coke and headed to the center of the GA. Three feet away from the microphone. One by my one the Maytals came out, the crowd hollered and the bass and kick drum quickly followed. They began with their biggest hit, or at least most streamed, Pressure Drop, as if to mock us saying here’s what you came for but here’s why you’ll stay. The scene was set OJ drummer and lead guitarist  Paul Douglas, and Carl Harvey, in between contemporaries, a keyboardist and two stunning Caribbean back- up singers. They played through the classic reggae riff two times until the MC announced the lead man. Toots, came running onto the stage wearing what seemed like a rattlesnake leather jacket and pants with red detailing, a durag and chunky black Oakley shades. Was I caught off guard by his appearance? Yes. Was I bit apprehensive in singing along with him during the first few repetitions of Pressure Drop? Yes. But did I then start dancing, and by 5 minutes into it do a 180 and realized I needed to somehow emulate this swagy icon? Also YES! 

As the show went on I’m proud to say I sang along to every word. They were captivating. I had no need to get another drink or check my phone. Simply, because their music was spotless, stimulating, and most of all a clear established shared experience among the band. The way they wondered into song from song highlighted their biphonic continuity. The attention to the sudden hits and ska solos was evidence of their history and connection. Although divided in nature, Toots clearly being the frontman, they performed as one. There was no Toots, and the Maytals, and the newer members, there was just one entity, one sound; Reggae.

Before playing 54-56, Toots removed his glasses transforming him suddenly into a wise old man. The music stopped and he began to talk in his thick uplifting Jamaican accent. He spoke about his time in Jamaica, the level of poverty which he, the Maytals, and songs all came from. Nearly tearing up while contrasting it to the level of fame and fortune they now all revel in. Before the audience had the chance to get sentimental over the pride that was in the room, he belted “Give it Up Mister”  and we replied “Yeah.” The energy thereafter was explosive

It was as if the legends of reggae had made Belly Up their classroom, teaching us Reggae, lecturing our souls about movement. Head bopping, hips swinging soul shining reggae. I left the concert on a high, that lasted for days.

In today’s world where the music you listen to is a result of a 15% talent and 85% marketing strategy, it’s becoming increasingly  hard to differentiate yourself and gain traction among audiences. However with next to no press the indie folk rock phenomenon Bahamas, arguable both an artist and a band, has made something quite unique of their music in the past ten years. I am pleased to be writing this as a proud listener since the beginning of what can be only defined as true artistry.

Effie Jurvanen, who claims the stage name Bahamas, gives joy and solace to nearly 2.2 million monthly listeners on Spotify. To put that figure in context, Bahamas’s streams easily outnumbers those of underground press stars like the War on Drugs (2 million average listeners), and St. Vincent (1.4 million) who both appear on stages of high end music festivals like Coachella and Bonnaroo, year after year. However, even with his loyal audiences and authentic sound, Bahamas has not drawn in the fame of artists with similar popularity. Mainly, because Effie Jurvanen is simply and honestly unconcerned with fame. Since deciding to pursue his  music in the early 2000 Effie has prioritized his artistry above all else. Bahamas sound is not only authentically crafted, but genuinely reflective of his own values, experiences and his place in time and within the industry.

In the past 10 years I’ve played his songs on repeat, deciphering and analyzing them, like a kid curiously looking out the backseat window of a car as Bahamas music developed and grew like mountains on my horizon. Bahamas sings my lullabies, my jams, my grooves and my ballads. His music has inspired me and many people, to never let go of the framework that makes up who you are, regardless of what everyone else is doing. He inspires me to keep pursuing my passions. My romance with Bahamas began when I was only 13 with bruised knees, acne and an Ipod mini, he was a young Canadian skater, with a pink strat, some recording equipment, a cabin in Ontario and a broken heart. Now I’ve come of age and he is a father of two. Our discrepancies are greater than ever but his sound and music still hold dear.

Lonley Loves

After spending the winter of 2008 in northern Ontario recording and producing his debut album, Pink Strat, Efie Juravan decided his stage name would be Bahamas. Crispy strumming, mellow vocals, beachy harmonies and twangy solos is Bahamas bread and butter. So it’s no surprise that he chose this as the first song on his debut album, as it establishes his folk characteristics and foreshadows their prevalence in his work to come. Although this song gained little recognition during its release, listening to it now, four albums later, It’s not hard to hear Bahamas carefully laying down the framework of what would soon be his career. 

Lost In the Light

Questionable one of Bahamas most recognized song, “Lost in the Light” speaks to Bahamas ability to comfort the broken hearted. This song is best heard if listened to when all you want is an optimistic sulk. Throughout Bahamas 2nd album, Barchords, long strums and simple riffs give well deserved space to his honest lyrics: 

Your Sweet Touch

In Barchord fashion, this song starts off similarly to “Lost in the Light”, in a mellow optimistic sulk.  “Tell me what to say, to make it go away, and I’ll do that, dear” However the drop of the bass drum and snare after the first verse picks up the tempo and you can’t help but dub Bahamas a soul. I’ve listened to this song crying, dancing and pretty much everywhere in between. Thanks to Bahamas seamless ability to contrast moods and genres the listener can experience it in a multitude of ways. 

Waves

In his 2014 album, Bahamas is Efie, Bahamas picks up right where he left off in Barchords. However now employing means of seduction, in “Waves” his strums swiftly bounce back and forth in the speakers evoking the anticipation of audiences over the previous two years. Waves introduces Bahamas more seasoned sound. At this point in his career he has been on tour and opened with artist like the Lumineers and (his boss) Jack Johnson.  

Like the Wind

When asked about this song in an interview with Australian magazine, Music Feels, Efie from Bahamas said, “It’s the opposite of a single, its slow, its sad, maybe it’s boring. So I’m surprised people like it”  “Like the Wind” is rooted in a slow picking pattern and riffs that run parallel to Bahamas melodic vocals and harmonies. Comparing love to the fleeting feeling of the wind, is not only historically beautiful but also relatable to his most favored audiences; the daydreamers & the broken hearted.This song contains my single most favorite lyric. However I can’t disclose why. Perhaps, it’s its honesty that brings me in, or maybe it’s the acapella approach that gives it a certain effect. Either way when I stood in Denver’s intimate bluebird theater and watched him sing this lyric, I wasn’t alone singing at the top of my lungs.

All the Time 

Bahamas most charted, noted and rewarded song. It’s rumored that Ben Stiller loved this song so much that when directing “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” he personally asked Bahamas to write a song for the movie. Bahamas denied writing a new song, but happily accepted covering The Human League’s classic hit “Don’t you want me”. All the Time‘s long annunciation on each word in the intro and chorus over rung out bar chords, lures the audience to answer the question Bahamas proposes. YAS! Bahamas we want some of it. In fact scratch that we want it all.

Little Record Girl

If everyone could please go grab your cowboy boots and flare jeans!! This song is a clever Canadian boys tribute to his southern folk and rock influence! Complete with banjo picking, (what seem to be ) cheating women troupes and “Oh Oh Oh Oh Ohs!” Actually this song is not even about a girl, it’s about a record. So listen carefully to Bahamas take on personifying inanimate objects. God I love when artists do that. 

Opening Act

In his most recent album, EarthTones, Bahamas debuts not only his new female singer, but also his new groovy 70’s RnB sound. In an instagram video a few weeks ago, Efie posted a video of him with his two toddlers on a porch bench licking popisicles and singing the chorus to this song. Its clear that songs from the now father and husband, Bahamas will now be Family friendly, but make it funk! They sat and sang “Shooby Dooby”, and the Bahamas from 2008 recording songs for sulking in a cabin was nowhere to be seen. 

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Bad Boys Need Love Too

If I had heard it two years ago I would never have thought it was form Bahamas. Bahamas’s boss, or more appropriately, the owner of the label he’s on BrushFire Records, Jack Johnson attributes a lot of his inspiration from his children so it wouldn’t surprise me if the newly family man, Bahamas came up with this over a fatherly moment or a temper tantrum. Sometimes all you need to know is the name of the song to listen to it. This is one of those songs.

So Free

8 minutes, and no one is complaining. If it wasn’t for the newest band member, Canadian female singer, absolutely slaying the harmonies on this song, it could have realistically been on any one of his four albums.

Bahamas latest album is a true time piece for Bahamas, and ode to Effie Juravans talented arch as an artist. Instead of growing and developing as an artist and person and never looking back, Bahamas is aware of how he has changed musically and thematically, and indulges in the opportunity to celebrate it. Speaking to his previous lovers to singing about his children, his fans continue to stay loyal. Like his fans loyalty, Bahamas is loyal to his evolution.

My introduction to Brushfire Fairytales is nothing short of real spirit work.

Ever since I was 5 years old I’ve been hushed to sleep by the lullabies of Jack Johnson. The songwriting surfer man from the North Shore of Hawaii has consistently altered the way I think and feel. Casually guiding my decisions like the inviting glow of a lighthouse on the water and the land is dark.

On September 11th 2001, my father was taken from us. I was only five years old at the time and the terror of that day in the city that never sleeps decided to keep us all awake, night after night. Sleep or lack thereof became a huge concern in my fragmented home. In order to hush the tears of my family, friends, and myself, we turned to Brushfire Fairytales, a record my father had bought only days prior. We found it one night cleaning out his car on the passenger seat. It was and is the most valuable article to every been found in one of those miniature blue plastic bodega bags. My mom, half of what she once was, would pop the CD out of its cover. Stuck in a navy rain jacket under a torrential downpour with a five o’clock shadow hiding a half baked grin; Jack Johnson knew what we were going through and how we were going to get out. Every night for two years that album would sound and I could sleep.

At the age of 7 In between Dreams, Jack Johnson’s 2nd album, was given to me along with a CD player as a farewell gift from my family before my first time away from home. Off to summer camp for 4 weeks with only two CDs, I went. I was amid the pines of New Hampshire, and although I fell hard over what would later be an album of classics like, Better Together, Banana Pancakes, and Sitting, Waiting Wishing. At night, when the rain would fall on the tin roof, as it often does during New Hampshire summers, my mind would stray to towers, terror, and fear my 7-year-old self turned to Brushfire Fairytales, the album that could solace me to sleep

The Brushfire Fairy Tales hit, Bubble Toes, gave Johnson the support and push he needed to go onto writing two more albums and ultimately dubbed “The Worlds Mellowest Superstar” by Rolling Stones in 2008. The fans, like myself, who had been with him since 2001 rejoiced in his well-deserved seven years in the making recognition. Which resulted in an announcement of a world tour. Although I still have yet to see him live, (shocking I know) I can recall spending countless hours perusing youtube for live footage of this international “mellow superstars” world tour. To my surprise, his Parisian audience proved to be the most enthusiastic prompting one of his most-streamed tracks the mash-up to Belle and Banana Pancakes, on his live album En Concert. In this song you find a sexy Johnson singing intimately in french and Spanish, nothing short of swooning.

The Intimate simplistic melodies from Brushfire Fairytales laid the groundwork for the sex appeal and creativity he developed in later albums like En Concert. The News, for instance, is stripped down and escorted in by a simple fingerpicking pattern and melodic dreamy vocals still can come across my nightly mediation. I convince myself it was written for me and those affected by 9/11, as if he was calming us down from it all, months before it even happened. Foreshadowing, in its most tranquil form.

The weight of these lyrics is intentional and timelessly relevant.

Jack Johnson ended up in a coma for a few days and suffered severe injuries to his ribs and face. It was at that moment where he decided to quit his pursuit of surfing and follow his long-time passion for music and film making. Although he quit surfing, his “class” or group of friends he surfed with daily went on to become household names; Kelly Slater, Rob Machado & Pat O’Connell to name a few. In true Jack Johnson style, he took his suffering and pain and turned it into positive energy in the form of a song. Taking in the negative and pushing out the positive is Johnson’s M.O.

It only takes a few moments to alter your life, Johnson and I both know that. But perhaps for Johnson it’s more like three minutes. Nearly every song on this album (and throughout his whole discography) lives somewhere around the three-minute mark, leaving me to believe as a storyteller and songwriter there is a power in those three minutes. Nearly every three-minute article on Brushfire Fairytales can be pinned to one point in my life, like a footnote informing the reader of whatever Jack Johnson judgement applied and why.

The piano keys rocking back and forth from the left to right speaker on the final track of his album, It’s all Understood, guided me to make the decision to leave the east coast and everything I knew to come to Denver to pursue my two loves music and mountains.

Furthermore, it was Ben Harper’s guitar slides and Tommy Jordan’s steel drums featured on Flake, that I blared driving solo with all my belongings from New Jersey to Denver the summer before my Freshman year of college.

In an attempt to hush the cacophonies of coming of age, I sang the harmonizes to the breaks at the top of my lungs repeating his ambiguous lyrics without thinking. Tapping my steering wheel as the crescendos hit towards the end…

I am carefree with Brushfire Fairytales when its my side.

So if I was stranded on an island with only one album, it would need to be comforting, so I could contemplate. “What the hell am I doing here?” After contemplation, I would need this same album to dance, cry,  fall in love with and be able to pull my fear out. Because there’s no way fear isn’t following my sandy bum to this metaphorical island. 

Brushfire Fairytales is more than just an album, it’s a lens. I wear to see the world and all its circumstances more beautifully. They have never failed me so I have opted to never take them off. 

Carly King is a 22-year-old creative singer/songwriter from Princeton, New Jersey and recent graduate from the University of Denver, where she majored in English and minored in Marketing and Jazz Guitar. 

Carly’s passion for music has taken form in her songwriter, singing and most notably, performing. Her flair and authenticity are manifested in her unique stage presence. Her knack for arranging cross overs, specifically turning hip hop and R&B classics into her own, make her relatable to a variety of audiences. Carly has inherent insights into the dynamic between artist and audience. So whether performing an original song or a cover she creates a memorable experience.

Before graduating, Carly used her Marketing minor to undertake in an independent study to leverage her existing social media communities to promote her new music project; her band “Carly and the Kings”. Carly and the Kings are a trio that focuses on performing Carly’s original music, as well as popular and unexpected covers around Denver.   

 In Colorado, Carly has found immense inspiration for her work in the beauty of the rocky mountains. Her original music contains natural imagery, inviting intimacy, and a whole lot of soul. When she isn’t playing or writing music, Carly practices yoga, snowboarding, and enjoys traveling and spending time with her family and friends.