Today, Adam Young celebrates the release of his debut solo record, Elementary Carnival Blues – an album that has seen the musician dive into some stellar alternative country sounds and work with some incredibly talented types along the way. While his work with seminal bands in Daisygrinders and Big Heavy Stuff perhaps would indicate a a similar rockier sound would follow on his new album, Young acknowledges his own musical roots on Elementary Carnival Blues and brings to us a record that is gorgeously authentic and rich in promise.
Young takes us even further into the record, giving us a little insight into the writing of each track.
Ghost Song
I worked on this record for more than three years, and I thought about it for many more before I even started. This might have been the song that started the ball rolling. When we sequenced the record, it was the indisputable opener on every order we could come up with. Then Jeff Mercer agrees to play guitar and Jason Walker does that thing with the pedal steel and you start thinking, “We might have something here.”
Breeza
I’ve driven through Breeza quite a few times; for some reason it tends to be at night. So my experience of the place is largely a roadside sign and the mystery of what’s out there in the dark. Breeza’s up near Gunnedah. I once heard a joke about Gunnedah: ‘It’s really fuckin’ hot, but head one way down the road and you come to Coolah. Go the other way and you get to Breeza.’ Cruel, huh?
The Queen of the Plains
Above all, it’s a road song. I wrote it on the road and it’s where it sounds best. The ‘Queen’ is a bit of a paean to the people who roam the byways playing their songs and being true to the muse. In this song, she takes a female form, but that’s incidental to the idea. This one is for every true artist who’s held the attention and the heart of every sweaty punter in every sweaty backroad pub you care to pin on a map. I’ve seen it a thousand times and it never gets old. It’s as beautiful and true as life gets.
New West
A friend of mine once said, ‘There is a place reserved in heaven for people who write songs of redemption’. This is kind of my bid for a seat on the bus. I actually have two songs that use the same lyric. I wrote the first one years ago, and it’s a bit of a live staple. It’s a Stonesy, bar-room rocker. This one isn’t that. Katie [Brianna] makes this song what it is.
Western Electric
I wrote the lyrics for this song 20 years ago. The rest has changed. I couldn’t have said then what it was about, so I’ll make something up now. This song is about that point in your formative years when you realise there’s a world out there, you’ve read On the Road and you want to seize life. The thing is, you have no idea what that means or how to do it. So you just fake it ‘til you make it.
Wolfe Island Blues
I grew up near Kingston, Ontario, on the easternmost point of that eponymous lake. Wolfe Island is a ferry ride over the water, and a way station on your trip to upstate New York. At night, Wolfe Island becomes a pincushion of telecommunication and radio towers, and there begins the light show. The song is the first I’d written about Canada and it name checks Lake Superior, a place that spooks me out.
Elementary Carnival Blues
I’m quite comfortable talking about the lyric to this song, mostly because it’s an instrumental. Springsteen once said of songwriting, ‘Is that what the song means? Yes. Is that what I was thinking when I wrote it? No.’
The Top of the Mountain
I lived in a farmhouse high in the hinterland once. An old farmer told me the ridge was ‘ironstone’, and attracted lightning strikes. I have no idea whether this was true, but it sounded good. And the storms at this place were legend. Real ten-bell motherfuckers. Lightning took out an old pine tree one night. Splintered it like kindling.
Bluer Skies
If I wrote 25 words here it would take me longer than it took to write the song. Here are 24 words for you.
Racing Trains
I don’t write literal songs. I just follow an idea, which might make sense to me, then I hope I’ve touched on something universal enough for you. This one is about isolation, particularly that isolation you feel in the outer suburbs, on the fringe. It’s about a couple of protagonists consumed by inarticulate frustration and inward violence. It’s a vaguely threatening, portentous song. Or it’s just a song about trains. Depends on which day you catch me.
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Adam Young launches Elementary Carnival Blues at the Marrickville Bowling Club on March 19th – cop a copy of the album now, released through Stanley Records through MGM!
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