Small Acts of Life: A Conversation with Courtney Marie Andrews
Interviews
By William Boyle
It’s a hard time to feel lucky, but good music can still make you feel that way. Lucky that you exist at the same time as an artist you admire. Lucky that her work has crossed your path. Courtney Marie Andrews is one such artist, and her new record, Old Flowers (out July 24 from Fat Possum), is such a record. In fact, since I discovered her album Honest Life in 2017, I’ve felt generally lucky to have her songs to lean on. They’ve soundtracked long drives from the Deep South back home to the East Coast, they’ve been with me in my headphones and on my speakers, and they’ve been a source of solace and strength in these years of madness. “You want it darker, we kill the flame,” Leonard Cohen sang on the title song of the record he released right before his death—and that’s the way it feels some days now, like all hope’s been extinguished. But the fact of the matter is that Andrews’s songs are flames, lights to guide us through the dark. They’re evocative, bittersweet, reflective, and haunting, and I’m so thankful for them.
William Boyle: Old Flowers has been a real lifesaver for me in these dark, scary days. It’s full of so much beauty and yearning. So many striking sensory details. Between recording it and releasing it, the world’s obviously changed drastically. The album very much seems like a memory piece, and I know I’m accessing my memories differently—with even more reverence, I guess—in quarantine. Has your perception of Old Flowers changed at all? The longing that’s present right from the start—I’m thinking of lines like “If I could go back, I’d pick you wildflowers, tie them in burlap string, tell you what you mean to me” on opener “Burlap String”—feels even more full-blossomed now with so much in our lives so distant and out of reach.
Courtney Marie Andrews: First of all, thank you. I am so pleased that my record could arrive as a comfort to you. I feel that even pre-pandemic, the view of our memories is ever-changing. Obviously, quarantine offers us so much solitude, and that process of perspective was sped up twofold. I’d say that quarantine has made me more nostalgic, overall, so I’ve been pondering the backstories of these songs, more than the songs themselves, as the writer. However, it did cross my mind that “Burlap String” took on a whole new level of grieving in my mind.
WB: You occasionally mention places by name in your songs, but it’s pretty rare. One thing that strikes me is how good you are at infusing your songs with a sense of place without getting overly specific. Your songs often feel like a place. I feel the West in these songs. How do you think about place when you’re writing? Did place have a big impact on the creation of Old Flowers?
CMA: I write the energy I feel around me, and more often than not, I get so inspired by writing in new places. Place is another tool in the toolbox as a writer. I was raised by hobby painters. There was a lot of visual art around me growing up, so I take that same approach to songwriting. I want to transport people somewhere when I write. When they arrive, I want to tell them a secret. Place means a lot to me.
WB: Your lovely poems feel cut from the same cloth as your songs, and the emotion in your singing voice comes through in your voice on the page. What tells you something’s a song or a poem? Is it just a feeling? Do songs ever become poems for you or vice versa? Or is it a totally different thing?
CMA: I can’t quite place my finger on why, but I have noticed that my poems come from this almost philosophical mindset, where I try to unveil some universal truth. Whereas my songs often come in the voice of a lover or friend. They feel like two different voices to me, even if they’re getting to the bottom of similar subjects. I’ve yet to crossbreed either. I will say, though, that when a song comes to me, it already has a melody, whereas my poems don’t.
WB: Your poem “Knock Your Old House Down” seems like a mission statement in the middle of the global nightmare we’re all experiencing, a call to be made softer by these difficult times, to resist hate and bitterness and anger, to embrace kindness and art and the power of nature and imagination. Your songs walk the same road. Even as they’re often edged with sadness, with that deep longing for something in the past, they’re full of hope. They’re never sappy or sentimental but they always have that room for hope, seem to push away despair. A line like “I’m alone now but I don’t feel alone” from the title track feels particularly triumphant and resonant in the current moment. What are you feeling hopeful about these days?
CMA: Thank you. I think a healthy amount of optimism is beneficial for our brains and hearts. Obviously, too much can blind us from the truth, but I suppose I do try and strike a balance, subconsciously. These days, I am hopeful about small things—things that I can control in my own space, like unveiling a new aspect of my writing and songs or harvesting a radish in my garden. These small acts of life have been instilling me with hope. I can’t predict where all of this is headed, but I have lived long enough to know that the prettiest view is the one that arrives after you’ve been pulled through the darkest of trenches.
WB: Who are some of the writers, musicians, filmmakers, photographers, and painters (or any other artists I’m leaving out) who have been inspiring you lately? How does that inspiration work its way into your creative process? Do you read a poem or hear a song or see a picture and feel inspired to work on your own stuff? It seems like your creativity is probably fed as equally by nature as it is by art—how has your experience with nature changed in these last couple of months?
CMA: Oh, this list is endless. I’m an admirer of all art. Mary Oliver poems are like my spiritual bible. Steinbeck taught me about human nature and how to make a character relatable. Joni Mitchell taught me about artistic integrity and exploration of sound. Marc Chagall’s brushstroke is what dreams are made of. Richard Linklater makes films about human connection that showed me life truly does reflect art. I love it all.
As far as nature, well . . . Nature is my church. Even before the pandemic, I used walking as another tool in my toolbox. So many of my poems and songs have arrived by just simply walking or hiking in nature. My daily meditation. The pandemic has made these spaces even more sacred.
William Boyle is from Brooklyn, New York. His books include: Gravesend, which was nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière in France and shortlisted for the John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger in the UK; The Lonely Witness, which was nominated for the Hammett Prize and is nominated for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière; A Friend Is a Gift You Give Yourself; and, most recently, City of Margins. He lives in Oxford, Mississippi.
Courtney Marie Andrews left her home in Phoenix, Arizona, at just sixteen years old. Her relentless performing and traveling led to work as a touring musician for Jimmy Eat World and Damien Jurado. She eventually began to release her own music, finding a worldwide audience in 2016 with her record Honest Life. May Your Kindness Remain (2018) received critical acclaim from outlets such as Rolling Stone, NPR, Variety, and The Guardian, and drew praise from John Prine and Brandi Carlisle, among others. Andrews released Old Flowers, her latest album, in July.
More Interviews