Songwriting, David Ortiz, and The Sot-Weed Factor: Inside the Creative World of Erin McKeown
RIPPED AND RICH
Songwriting, David Ortiz, and The Sot-Weed Factor: Inside the Creative World of Erin McKeown
I recently had the opportunity to speak with Erin McKeown, a prolific singer-songwriter who has written and produced eleven full-length albums ranging from genres of rock to folk, as well as 3 musicals, including Miss You Like Hell, garnering 5 Drama Desk Awards. McKeown, born in Virginia, has played all over the country, and in April they just ended their latest tour that included stops in Canada, St. Louis, and Northampton, MA. I joined McKeown over Zoom after their tour to talk about their creative process, and to step into their creative world.
Photo courtesy of Erin McKeown
On How They Begin Writing a Song:
“I try to keep the process the same,” McKeown says, gesturing to the room visible behind them, “So that doesn't necessarily mean I have to be in this room that I'm in right now.” They’re in what appears to be their studio in their home. The studio is filled with natural light, a bass guitar is hanging from the wall near shelves holding other musical instruments. McKeown is wearing a warm yellow sweater with a bandanna wrapped around their neck. They explain how they generally start with rhythm or percussion when songwriting. “I have a bunch of drum machine apps on my phone.” After they have a rhythm they create a brain dump of lyrics, McKeown refers to this as “lyric logic. . . all the words and things I can think of….everything from cool sounding words, to meaningful words, to puns, or idioms.”
After the initial lyrics and rhythm are created, instruments are next. McKeown plays at least six instruments. They started to list them, “What do we name? Instruments like percussion, things with frets and strings, things that have keyboards on them.” The instrument that has McKeown’s heart right now is violin. “I'm trying to learn to play violin, and it's so, instrument family wise, different from anything else I play. …[But] the violin is the closest thing I play to singing without singing and I’m just kind of in love with it right now.”
On David Ortiz and Inspiration:
“Anybody’s story is more interesting than mine at this point.” McKeown laughs. “You know, it’s like I used to answer that question like a smartass where I'd be like, oh, like David Ortiz.” They explain that it’s inspiring to see someone at the peak of their career do something that has an immediate, resounding impact, such as hitting a homerun, in David Ortiz’s case.
“The things [inspirations] that I would say are so obscure, so obscure because I think they’re so personal to everybody,” McKeown continues, stepping away from sports. McKeown mentions the writer John Barth. “He wrote this fake epic novel,” McKeown said, referring to The Sot-Weed Factor (1960). McKeown tells me how they read it religiously in high school. They describe the book as “a fake, 17th-century epic about a tobacco planter in Maryland and Virginia.” They referred to the novel’s absurdity, but said that at the same time they found it influential.
On How a Summer Make Out Session Became a Song:
McKeown’s newest single, “Summer School,” which came out on October 31st of 2023, details McKeown’s first queer experience in their hometown of Virgina. McKeown told me the story behind the song: “We [McKeown and a girl] were making out on the back porch, and we thought we were being quiet, and my mom was home, and then I guess we weren’t being quiet, and she kind of came out on the porch and flicked the light on and like we were both wearing dresses, and our dresses were up like over our heads. And my mom was like, ‘Okay, [your friend] has to go home now,’ and then she shut the light off, and we actually never spoke about it for years.”
What manifested from that story is this wonderful 9/8 waltz that was deeply personal to McKeown. Being interested in McKeown’s process, I asked them about producing, writing and performing the song. “In terms of producing it myself, the answer is not that exciting. It’s mostly just like, how can I do this quickly?” McKeown answered. “Summer School,” by virtue of the story that inspired it, is a personal song, and I had wondered if it was also about having that intimate connection with the music. But, McKeown said, while they had initially envisioned more singers on the track, or more production, the response to just their own production and vocals has been great. “I think there’s enough in the current recording of [the song] to allow people to connect to it.” I agree. McKeown’s “Summer School” is a soulful example of their writing and is sonically romantic and exciting.
On Touring:
“It [their Spring 2024 tour] was really cool cities. I love the people I tour with. I really like it when [rooms are packed] and that could be 20 people in a room that’s meant for 15, or that could be 500 people in a room that’s meant for 300 people.” That feeling of being packed creates an energy. When the crowd is distant, either from architecture or sound, it lacks excitement and energy, McKeown explains.
“I like towns that appreciate music and appreciate performance. It’s a little tricky when you go somewhere like LA or Nashville or New York. Places where people are maybe in the industry or I don't know. See too much of how the sausage gets made, or just see too many shows, you know.” McKeown cites Milwaukee, Louisville and St. Louis as cities that they love to play in. “It’s funny. I've been playing long enough that I used to be able to smoke during shows, and I really prefer it that now shows are non-smoking.”
On What’s Next:
Before we left, I asked the question I was most excited to ask: what is next? McKeown is currently rewriting a musical that will be produced in Chicago in the 2025-2026 season. They said:
It’s a musical about a family that falls apart in a divorce, and then sort of gets reconstituted. But my rewrite is to explore. What is the fourth wall in music? We can get meta like when we’re in theater, and we like to face the audience and acknowledge the audience and acknowledge the moment that, like Oh, we’re in a theater. Is there an equivalent in music like what is the fourth wall in music? And is there a way to break it or manipulate it, or think about it?
This will be McKeown’s newest (old) musical and first of theirs to explore breaking the fourth wall in music. A testament to their ability to continually create, evolve and add their presence to the world of music and theater.