MAYA HAWKE

This record is called Moss because I’ve been gathering a lot in the last few years I guess. Sitting still and collecting a green blanket of memories and feelings. Making this record was me trying to get up and shake it off and look at all of it. It was the first step in untangling myself and really trying to look at the rock under the moss. I’m not sure how many steps are left or what step I’m on but I know this record is a huge shift. Songs have always come into my life out of need. I think every song on this record is about a beginning hidden in an ending, hidden reclamations of ways I’ve disappointed myself. The record opens with Backup Plan…  I think being absolutely and freely myself was always stupidly my plan B. If I couldn’t succeed at being the person I was pretending to be, if I couldn’t want the things I’d been pretending to want, only then would I give myself permission to just be me. Then came Thérèse and Mermaid Bar – Thérèse is inspired by a painting but about feeling hemmed in and stuck. Stuck as the version of yourself that someone else created.  Mermaid Bar is about a girl who tries to end her life by jumping into the Hudson River and instead becomes a siren who runs a restaurant for all the creatures hiding at the bottom of the sea. Bloomed Into Blue was originally a poem I had written with a friend in high school called the B-Word Muse. It was a tribute to “muses”; Ariel, Eddie Sedgwick, Marie Thérèse, and so many more. Women were always the subject of art and not the creator. Worthy of being spoken about but not worthy of being listened to.

This record reckons with childhood in Sweet Tooth and Driver, with regret in Luna Moth, Crazy Kid and Sticky Little Words, and with anger in South Elroy, Restless Moon and Over. Above all this record wants to be about rebirth and acceptance. I’m crawling back to myself.

Thank you for watching.