PHOTO BY TUCKER LEARY
JENNY OWEN YOUNGS INTERVIEW BY NICHOLAS SENIOR
I
t’s incredibly tricky to main- exploring writing with and for an idea in your mind for hours on it, and you tell your story, and tain a unique songwriting voice other artists for about five years. or weeks before you ever commit you make it beautiful or bruised, or when you’re an in-demand When I was just getting started in it to paper. Co-writing requires a however it needs to be.â€? co-writer. It’s even more challeng- the co-writing world, I held the certain level of discomfort, but the ing to make that voice resonant missions of 'writing for me' and upside is that you get to kick the The songs are connected by the and resplendent. That’s exactly 'writing for others' in very separate ball with somebody else, and you goal of making sense of reality what Los Angeles-by-way-of-New parts of my brain. But the longer have access to double the ideas and wanting to escape into a Jersey artist Jenny Owen Youngs I co-write, the more clear it be- for whatever you're working on.â€? dream world. That sense of escaphas accomplished with her lat- comes that this is not the mindset ism feels grounded in the lyrics, est release. That self-released EP, that best serves my writing. The There's a casual, almost conver- but is also something that is easy Night Shift, out now, sees five songs lesson I keep learning, over and sational nature to Youngs’ music to relate with. take flight - there’s an immedi- over again, is this: the best songs that's like a hot cup of coffee ate personal connection to these come when I can suspend that shared between friends on a cold “The thread that runs through these songs that makes them relatable separation and just say what I Saturday afternoon. Even the rel- songs is the connection between and remarkable. The witty lyricism, mean, say what moves me, regard- atively bombastic “Dreaming on our dreadfully mortal bodies, the natural crescendos, and the less of who's going to be singing it.â€? the Busâ€? feels relaxed. fixed in space and time, and our immediacy of the hooks are all just minds, free to wander the universe, “I think writing for myself is easy,â€? “I think the conversational nature of travel through time, go anywhere wonderfully done. she continues. “In that I generally the songs is a natural development you can imagine,â€? Youngs notes. Youngs has written songs for, and/ know what I want to say and how I in my writing style,â€? she answers. “The songs explore dream space, or with, Panic! At The Disco, Pitbull, want to say it. But I'm also my own “Maybe the longer you write songs, nostalgia, and memory. Nothing and Ingrid Michaelson, among harshest critic, so there's a lot to the more apparent it becomes can be changed, but everything many others. So, is her mindset for live up to. To write well with others, that the shortest distance between can be turned over in your hands, others different than for herself? Is I've had to cultivate a particular two points is a straight line, and the and perhaps re-contextualized it easier to write for other artists? type of vulnerability - you have shortest distance between my feel- through that examination. Maybe to be willing to say an imperfect ings and your heart is me just saying there's something we can learn “I've been writing songs for myself idea out loud to another person, the damn thing. Then, once you through our methods of escapism since I was in high school,â€? Youngs whereas when writing for oneself, have that core pillar of honesty to that can help us feel less afraid, or recalls. “But I've only really been you could just sand and sculpt work with, you find images to hang more prepared, to be here now.â€?đ&#x;’Ł
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