7. “Witches”

This song name-drops several people. What do they represent and how do they relate to the title?

The people I name-check are Marlee, Lindsey, and Allison. The way I visualize this song is that the world is frozen and me and all of my closest friends are running around acting crazy. It’s about having this shared understanding and language in a world that is increasingly isolating. Feeling like I’m not of this time, or that I don’t belong in this world—being frustrated about social media, or the music business, or politics—but then having close friendships with people that relate to me in that, and leaning on them. The imagery of a coven of witches came to mind; there’s a darkness to it, because we’re bonded by shared frustrations.

Can you elaborate on the lines “The myth won’t love you like no other, babe/The myth will always be fair-weather, babe”?

That was a moment of criticizing the act of self mythologizing that artists have to do. I was feeling like, “I hate social media, I hate when people brand themselves, and how we all are hustling so hard because the music business is so competitive.” This myth that you’re creating will fade eventually.

“You take it just like a man, babe/Scathing at the first sign of pain.” I found this lyric interesting for its kind of declaration that weakness is a male quality when it is typically associated with women.

I can’t even remember what inspired that line. I probably just had a bad interaction with a man. Because I do every single day of my life.

8. “War”

It seems like you are having an internal struggle here, and you repeatedly acknowledge that “it’s got nothing to do with you.” Who is the “you”?

I wrote that one for my best friend, Marlee, and for myself. She’s almost nine years sober and talks about that a lot in her work. “War” is about that constant struggle with the emotions and behaviors that come from being an addict or a codependent person. You have to remember, I’m not angry with this other person, the person that I need to negotiate all these feelings with is myself. Marlee and I are on the same side of the war, and we’re talking to all the yous out there in our lives. I almost look at it as an apology.

9. “Arkadelphia”

Is Arkadelphia Road a real place?

Yeah, it’s in Birmingham. The climax of this song took place there. This song is so fucked up. I knew when I wrote it that I will never be able to really tell the story, because it’s not my place. It’s about someone I have known for a very long time who struggled badly with addiction. It starts with this imagery of the South from my youth and conjures this innocence. Then the middle part takes you into the thick of the addiction: it’s truly dire, it’s life or death.

I have struggled, but not like this person did. So it’s just relating to them, trying to connect, and almost feeling like you’re getting ready to say goodbye. At the end it’s this whole thing of recovery and trying to do the next right thing in life. It ends in this sweet little place that says, “We’re doing our best.”

In the line “If I burn out like a lightbulb/They’ll say she wasn’t meant for that life/They’ll put it all in a capsule/And save it for a dark night,” are you referring to yourself?

I had the thought that, if I continue down the path I’m on, I don’t think I will—not necessarily that I won’t survive, but I didn’t think I would continue to live this same kind of life. The idea of the capsule was sort of, “I’m going to be one of the sad stories of music,” where people take these records out late at night when they’re sad and say, “Remember her? That was really a sad story.”

10. “Ruby Falls”

This song goes to many different places, literally and emotionally.

It’s about another friend of mine who passed away from a drug overdose. I’ve written a lot of songs about him over the years, like “Brother Bryan,” from Cerulean Salt. I look at the song as three parts. The first part is the high, being up in the air and living dangerously, but being free and happy. The middle part is on the ground, and it’s this gritty, real-time friendship or love. That part of the song is inspired by Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids. The ending is beneath the surface, six feet underground. It’s the sad inevitability of that story.

Lyrics like “Real love doesn’t follow a straight line/It breaks your neck, it builds you a delicate shrine” feel grounded in your own life lessons.

I think that sentiment is true, and it’s something I have stepped into in the last couple years. I’ve entered this phase of trying to accept people and meet them where they are. I think that’s what love is about. It’s not a straight line. You’re never going to find people that are exactly the perfect fit to you in the way that you think you need. But if you can open up a little bit, and expand your expectations, you might find that you can learn a lot from everybody.

11. “St. Cloud”

How did you know the title track belonged at the end?

Just like “Oxbow” was always first, “St. Cloud” was always last. It was a gut instinct. My songwriting jumps around on a spectrum from very literal to very abstract or poetic, and this one is more poetic. It takes more of a macro looking-down-at-the-world perspective, and is not hyper-focused on my own experience.

The first part flashes back to my time in New York. That was the longest time in my life that I’ve truly been single and solitary, and it was a formative time. It’s when I wrote Cerulean Salt, and when I was struggling with a lot of the stuff I’m working through now.

For the second part of the song, I wanted to find a place in America that wasn’t totally Small Town, USA, but also wasn’t super recognizable. “St. Cloud” comes from my dad’s hometown in Florida. It’s a suburb right outside of Orlando. I always liked the name, and I thought it would be a nice way to honor my dad. Then I got so attached to the name that I named the record after it.