

MC TAYLOR: But it does take me away from home. There are trade-offs, you know? I'm doing something that I absolutely love and am obsessed by, and my kids get to see me doing something that I am fully involved with. MC TAYLOR: We have to be away from home so often. MC TAYLOR: Well, the fact that we have to leave home.
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And it also - I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me question certain things about what being a professional musician requires of us. It's incredible to sort of fall into the home rhythms. It's the longest that my kids have ever seen me. you know, until - I am actually in California right now, the first trip of this nature that I've taken since this all started. Starting in March of 2020, I was in Durham, N.C.

But first we got to say 'em.įADEL: And you were in the same place for most of the time that you were making this album, which is unusual for you. HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER: (Singing) When it all feels fake, do the words have no meaning? They will if we let 'em. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IT WILL IF WE LET IT") But yeah, for the most part, it was composed between March of 2020 and maybe July of 2020. There are a couple songs that probably predate 2020. So I did get some time off (laughter), but I had no idea that it would be as much time off as we all ended up getting.įADEL: Little did you know that the pandemic was coming and mandating some time off for you.įADEL: So you wrote this album during sort of the lockdown at the beginning of this pandemic? MC TAYLOR: I have two kids, 8 and 12 years old. MC TAYLOR: At the end of 2019, I was probably nearing five, six, seven consistent years on the road. So you wrote this album during the pandemic.įADEL: But it seems the mood predates the coronavirus? Can you talk about where you were in your life at the end of 2019? He wrote most of the album, and he joins us now.
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But I know how to sing about it.įADEL: That's a bit from the song "Sanctuary," from Hiss Golden Messenger's "Quietly Blowing It." MC Taylor is the one singing on it. HISS GOLDEN MESSENGER: (Singing) Feeling bad, feeling blue. But then, I guess all good things are.Hiss Golden Messenger's new album is reflective, ruminative and not without a decent beat. It’s sort of a simple lesson in theory, but more complicated in practice. I have two children, and I’m trying to teach them about what it means to be, and the ways we all stand to benefit from being, good neighbors. We’re currently in the middle of it as a country and as a species. We all know some version of this conversation. How much to give away? How much to keep for ourselves? How much is too much, and how much is not enough? Maybe the conversation that the mother and son have throughout “Hardlytown” was my attempt to reckon with the tension that exists between selflessness and selfishness. The times that we’re living through have made me think, in so many different ways large and small, about our obligations to one another. Taylor discussed “Hardlytown” in a statement: In the video, Taylor stands with cue cards depicting the song’s lyrics just as Dylan does in the video for one of Paste’s favorite songs in his discography, “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” The folk rock of Bob Dylan is felt as an influence throughout the song, but especially in the KidEthnic-directed music video.

“Hardlytown” is a soulful, harmonica-infused exploration of what we owe to each other. The album follows 2019’s Terms of Surrender, which earned Taylor a Grammy nomination for best Americana Album. Taylor, has released the third single ahead of Quietly Blowing It, out June 25 via Merge Records. Hiss Golden Messenger, the project of M.C.
