Sharon Van Etten released Remind Me Tomorrow in January 2019. When I first heard “Comeback Kid” and later, “Seventeen,” I admit I was a little thrown by the sound and production of the songs. “Seems like every band goes 80s, although I can only think of Local Natives and Death Cab for Cutie as recent examples, and that’s not really my taste.)
However, these songs by Van Etten are EARWORMS. They both get stuck in my head. A great song is a great song, despite how it’s produced.
This is another great Song Exploder episode, a quick but detailed dive into Van Etten’s creative process for the song “Seventeen.” She discusses collaborating with another songwriter, even though she prefers working alone so she can “make mistakes when no one is looking,” and sharing the touchpoints with her producer around the sound she was trying to achieve with this record: Portishead, Suicide, and Nick Cave. The final sound of the album makes more sense after understanding that these were her influences this time around.
My favorite part of these episodes is when they play the original demo. It’s fascinating to me to hear how a song started, and what was retained or changed by the final production. This song begins as a “country dirge” and eventually becomes something bigger and more fleshed out.
Check out the episode below, and find more at Song Exploder.
Support the artist and buy a copy of her CD:
