Daniel EK of Spotify wants musicians to create more. Fans and followers want musicians to create more. In every walk of life, all we want is more.
We want it now and only the outliers are shown. Everything is muddied by a facade of perfection.
But there is beauty in the mundane, there is still a place for patience, and in Shiloh Mae’s first song in over two years, she skillfully prizes out a yarn that goes against the modern grain.
“South of Cheyenne” tells the tale of a road trip and gives us an honest perspective of an average life with the person you love. It’s nostalgic, imbued with simple and satisfying motifs and makes the most of the metaphors it so wonderfully leans on.
As they tire, the road rolls on.
Salt Lake City, you were pretty, we were tired
The road trip is a mirror of their evolving relationship. The places change and exist sometimes in contrast to their current state, but their mood and sense of togetherness morph as the miles rack up.
The beginning, the hard times, the resolutions:
Sleeping with your head against the glass
We sure like to do these things the hard way
Well Peoria, you thundered and we watched it from our bed
Close together in the end
It’s relationship as roadtrip. Metaphor in songwriting is universal, whether it’s a folky piece of nostalgia such as this, or some piece of progressive metal using the Nazca lines to symbolize death. (It’s Mastodon if you wondered.)
The trick with, both artists, is that they use their metaphors well. In Mae’s case, she also uses wordplay.
Nothing like the strip to show your hand.
A beautiful way to explore vulnerability, and a great use of the bright lights of Las Vegas to drive the metaphor home.
The lyrics are rich in themes to explore, but so is the music. The production by Tyson Motsenbocker is as polished as it comes. It has an expansive, organic, growing feel to it that compliments the structure of the song.
A lonely acoustic guitar starts it all off, with Matt Wright’s piano creating a sense of expectation. Jared Kauk’s strings develop into interweaving melodies and when the drums join the tapestry of sounds, each complimenting another, you can feel everything moving forward. Just like the car on the road.
Life is short, and unlike social media, it’s often quite mundane. The trick is to find a sense of contentment in it all. And in that average road trip, in an average relationship, with average things that happened and might happen to other average people, it seems that Mae has done that.
In a world of white noise, she’s found a way to tap into the normal.
Road trips take time, relationships take time, and creativity does too.
If her next song takes another two years, we can all just assume she’s found beauty in contentment.
And isn’t that what we all want really?
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