Molly Millwood - Liner Notes

SOMETHING EVEN WILDER

In December 2016, I took a deep breath and swallowed hard and announced to my little world that I was releasing an album. Rather than the excitement I imagine most musicians would have on such an occasion, what I felt was anxious apprehension. I had a bad case of imposter syndrome, because so few people knew that I sang and wrote songs, and I had performed publicly exactly zero times. My path toward making a studio album was long and meandering and almost accidental, but by the time the album came out, I knew I was only just getting started. The same day of its official release, I was back in the studio, recording a new song I’d just written.

This second album, bearing the fruits of my collaborative labor with Colin McCaffrey just like the first, is a collection of mostly original songs I’ve written over the past three years. The opening track, Hills of Home, is about the fulfillment I have found in this chapter of my life, and the role nature plays in bringing me peace – the woods, rivers, mountains, and wildflowers in the Vermont hills where I’ve settled with my family. It’s also a song about emotional freedom and expression – something I now experience in far greater measure because of singing and songwriting – and trusting in my own forward movement as I traverse a changing landscape. This song felt like it ought to be the title track, but I knew that would create confusion with my first record, Home. So I named the record after a line from Hills of Home instead, and I like to think the phrase captures something about the essence of this second project. It is something a little wilder, a little grittier and braver than my first.

Some of the other original songs are equally autobiographical, others are a little bit of my own lived experience woven into a fictional tale, and still others are not my own story at all. In some cases I’m still trying to figure out where they came from. On Borrowed Wings is a good example of this – it’s a story about an unhappy marriage and a woman realizing the power she gave to her husband, a power she now intends to take back. I don’t usually set out to write a song about a particular subject. Most of the time, they just come to me.

The four cover songs on the album all have some kind of significance rooted in my childhood, where I was surrounded by music-making. We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning, for example, is a song my mom and dad used to sing when they were a young duo performing at bars on weekends while their babies were asleep at home. Some of the most fun I’ve ever had in the studio was singing this duet with Colin, putting our own spin on it and shining the light for a minute on Colin’s voice all by itself – Colin who plays every instrument on every tune on both records (with a couple of small exceptions) and without whom nobody would be hearing my voice or my songs.

All together, the album most definitely doesn't fit a particular genre but the songs are bound together by my voice, the sincerity of my approach to singing and songwriting, and the awesome (in the true sense of the word) musical talents of my producer and collaborator, Colin McCaffrey.

Songs written by Molly Millwood except where indicated:

   1. Hills of Home
   2. Hold Back the Dark
   3. Pancho and Lefty (Townes Van Zandt)
   4. Armor
   5. On Borrowed Wings
   6. River
   7. For You
   8. Wayfaring Stranger (Traditional)
   9. We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning (Joyce Ann Allsup)
   10. Still Your Daughter
   11. Stay
   12. All My Tears (Julie Miller)
   13. It’s You

Produced by Colin McCaffrey. All songs recorded, mixed, and mastered at The Greenroom, East Montpelier, Vermont.

Molly Millwood – lead and harmony vocals

Colin McCaffrey – guitars (acoustic, electric, nylon string, resonator), mandolin, violin, viola, cello, bass, keyboard, shaker, harmony vocals, and duet vocal in We’ll Sweep Out the Ashes in the Morning

Carol Millwood – harmony vocal in All My Tears

CD graphic design by Ari Kirshenbaum; cover photo by Valerie Racine, inside photo by Carol Millwood.

SPECIAL THANKS:

To Colin – Ever tender and attuned in your handling of my songs, you render them infinitely more beautiful than I ever could alone. There is no end to my gratitude for your essential role in this newfound dimension of my life.

To Ari, my boys, and the other believing mirrors in my life – you know who you are – I treasure you. You are my muses, you give me courage, and you light the path when I lose my way.