Music Is A Language We All Speak: An Interview with Kelly McFarling

                    "We are all experiencing the same things, in completely different ways," says Kelly Mcfarling. "I think revealing your own moment through your limited lens can reveal larger more expansive truths." Many of those truths on her latest record, Water Dog, are told as learning moments of time and experience, how the shaping of our own lives become informed by all that we go and hopefully come through intact. "I struggle with letting go, of expectations, of my childhood, of what I should and shouldn’t be. I’m always trying to learn more about letting go gracefully, because I’m realizing that it is something that continues to be required," says Mcfarling. Growing, as Kelly points out, can be seismic and uncomfortable, but can also be hugely revelatory of inner transformations we've yet to encounter. Music often plugs directly into the parts of us that know what we know because we feel what we know, we wear it in our bodies, stories both told and untold, and if music is a language we all speak, it's also a language that we all share. We may have more in common than not, even if a million things stand in the way of acknowledging that. Songs are those bridges over troubled waters, and water is the stuff of life and the compass point of this record. "I found a lot of inspiration from water. I chose the name water dog because I love to watch the reckless abandon and joy of dogs playing in the water.  It became a totem for me during this time, and a reminder. I think diving into things is how we come to know the things we know, whether that's an outward or inward journey."


AHC: What has this journey in music, so far, been like for you, the highs and the lows, and what life lessons do you feel you've picked up along the way? 

Kelly: The journey in music for me began, as I think it does with everyone, musician or not, from when I was really young. I loved to sing, and I always knew that. I never really knew what to do with it, or had big goals for it, it was just part of what I did. I sang in church choirs, I joined youth choirs, I sang along to the radio and memorized lyrics. It was social and safe and fun to be inside of songs with other kids. It soothed me, and gave me a place to be and focus. 

I haven’t had a lot of highs and lows with music. Music has always been consistently satisfying to make, and a tool and a sanctuary. The highs and lows come from a circle of validation and discouragement that comes with trying to make a living from music. Transitioning into that world is something I’m always struggling with. The lows come from the fear of continuing to choose a thing that is hard to stabilize financially, emotionally, creatively. The highs are when you can focus on the music so much that you don’t have space for the fear or doubt and it feels like you are doing the right thing. 

AHC: What first drew you to music and what was your early musical environment like growing up? Were there pivotal songs for you then that just floored you the moment you heard them?

Kelly: I was always drawn to singing, and my family encouraged it. I was first exposed to creating music in choirs. I remember discovering singing in harmony, and feeling like it was the most beautiful, important thing. Holding onto a separate note while other voices moved and surrounded and vibrated was revolutionary to me, and I wanted to stay inside of those chords as long as I could. Being in choirs allowed me to learn and memorize a vast array of songs, which I think has been pivotal for me. My brain is conditioned to learn and retain melodies and lyrics. So many songs floored me at different times, but I was always interested in melodies and progressions that created dissonance. Early on I was drawn to songs like scarborough fair, and sally gardens, and the more melancholy folk songs. There’s something haunting and powerful about singing melodies that have been sung for a long time. As a child I was fascinated by that. I’ve always loved the songs that encourage and evoke nostalgia. 

AHC: Do you remember the first song that you ever wrote or played? Or that first moment when you picked up a pen and realized that you could create whole worlds just by putting it to paper? 

Kelly: I was a writer and a singer, but separately for a long time. I wrote poetry and short stories, but never put them to music until after college. I sang other peoples songs for such a long time before it even occurred to me that I should write my own. I was very focused on the instrument of my voice, and learning to mimic a certain voice, or blend with other voices. It wasn’t until my adulthood that I started considering my own voice. I remember playing a Gillian Welch tune at an open mic for the first time with a banjo. The rush inspired me to write something of my own to play. The first song was a rush job. I was 25 in my new apartment in San Francisco, late at night trying to have something original to perform at the open mic the next night. It was exciting, but I didn’t feel the weight of it. I had nothing to prove at that point, and no expectations or experience with creating a song of my own. In hindsight that openness was such a gift.  But every song comes so differently from a different place and they are all a gift. I love words, and every moment that I realize I can create them is in its own way a revolution. Writing songs still feels like a bit of a magical thing every time I do it.  

AHC: Which musicians have you learned the most from? Or writers, artists, filmmakers, teachers/mentors etc? What are the works you could not possibly live without?

Kelly: The list of those who influence me continues to reveal itself. It is vast. Musically, I connect to singer-songwriters the most. I loved discovering Ani Difranco when I was 14, and realizing that honesty was a powerful tool in writing. I loved listening to Outkast and memorizing Andrew 3000’s raps, with such clever phrases and the flow of the words and how you could make them rhyme differently depending on emphasis. I loved learning how to sing harmony by learning both parts in all the Indigo Girls’s songs, and singing them with my choir friends growing up. I love Toni Morrison novels, and the lush lyrical details of her characters and their lives. I love Flannery O’ Conner and the dark humor and beauty that come through in her seemingly simple stories. I learned how to read well and write expressively from my Jr. high school teachers Bernie Schein and Martha Caldwell. I learned how to express myself musically, and work hard from Kate Murray. Right now I’m always trying to learn more and pay attention to female artists specifically. 

AHC: What do you think makes for a good song, as you're writing and composing, is there a sudden moment when you know you've found the right mix, that perfect angle of light, so to speak? 

Kelly: I love songs that have clever or poetic turns of phrase. When a song can be about something incredibly specific, yet hold the weight of universal truths within that specificity, that is special to me. I also am fascinated with the human voice, and how a performance can really hold and deliver the meaning of words. With my own songs, each one has its own arrival time and journey. None of them are perfect, but sometimes you have to allow things to remain imperfect and let them go and be what they are. I don’t like to linger too long on things creatively. Not letting things become finished can be a disservice to them, and to the other things that need to come after it. Songs eventually have a life of their own, and if you don’t let them out of the house they can’t bloom. 

AHC: Do you consider music to be a type of healing art, a slightly imperfect vehicle through which to translate a feeling, states of rupture/rapture, hope lost and regained? Does the writing and creating of the song save you in the kinds of ways that it saves us, the listener?

Kelly: I consider music to be a conduit, a time traveler, a teacher, a companion, a mirror, so many things… Vibrations of sound are one of the first things we recognize as human animals, and we know things about ourselves when we hear music that we can’t articulate or define. I think music is a language we all speak and hear differently but are viscerally affected by. It is a vehicle for communication, but one that leaves a lot of space for meaning. It can put emotion into an organized sound when you are grasping to understand what you are feeling and how you are feeling it. Creating a song feels very different then listening to a song for me. When I’m listening, I’m free to absorb, and rustle whatever feelings are awakened or defined by a song. When I’m writing I’m actively trying to express something. Both of these experiences are healing. 

AHC: What are your fondest musical memories? In your house? In your neighborhood or town? On-tour, on-the-road?

Kelly: I have a great memory of dancing with my sisters and my parents to a new Whitney Houston CD when we were really young. I cherish every memory I have with my family that is musical. My sisters and I used to make up dances with our cousins that were hilarious and thrilling to me. My family didn’t pursue music in the ways that I did, but singing and dancing and theater and costumes were always around and encouraged and participated in. There was a creative silliness that I can see rooted in me, and I’m incredibly thankful for it. I also love all the great places playing music has allowed me to travel. Some of my favorite times have been in motion with friends listening to music, on our way to play music. 

AHC: When you set out to write a song, how much does 'where the world is' in its current moment, culturally, politically, otherwise, influence the kinds of stories you set out to tell?

Kelly: Conscious or not, if you are writing honestly about your experience, I think a larger consciousness is reflected. However, that’s tricky, because I only have my tiny slice of a lens, and that's all I can hope to reveal. I’ve always had a hard time trying to tell stories that aren’t mine, and culturally, politically etc, my experience is just as limited, and just as universal as everyone else’s. I’m fascinated with those limitations. I believe they are what give us a gateway into reality and understanding each other. We are all experiencing the same things, in completely different ways. I think revealing your own moment through your limited lens can reveal larger more expansive truths about the state of things, but for me it has worked in that direction. I can’t write honestly about anyone else’s current moment but mine, but it seems to me that all of our moments are at once individual and in some ways universal. 

AHC: Do you have any words of advice or encouragement for other musicians and singer-songwriters out there who are just starting out and trying to find their voice and their way in this world? What are the kinds of things that you tell yourself when you begin to have doubts or are struggling with the creative process? Or what kinds of things have others told you that have helped push you past moments of self doubt/creative blocks?

Kelly: I think if there is something you want to do, you have to start by just doing it. If you want to know who you are, action is the best indicator. It’s hard as a musician sometimes to get started when you are focusing on the point, or the pressure to make something good. If you remove that pressure and just start making sounds, things will happen. They may not be the things you want, but everything is a step towards something else. The more you focus on a thing the bigger it gets, so if you want something to be bigger in your life, focus on it. Don’t be afraid of making bad things. Just make them, and let them be what they are - they are part of the process. 

​AHC: Your new record, Water Dog, has a bold, intimate, ultimately necessary message behind it, as you describe it so well, it's about "how we come to know the things we know." Could you expand on your ideas behind this record, what its message/appeal to the world is, its message to yourself even?

Kelly: There are a lot of things in the record that just happened to appear together during this life season for me. A central theme that I cannot get away from is the constant shifting of things. It has become helpful and healing for me to look at life in a more fluid lens. Things change, and they keep changing. I struggle with letting go, of expectations, of my childhood, of what I should and shouldn’t be. I’m always trying to learn more about letting go gracefully, because I’m realizing that it is something that continues to be required.  Moving out to The Sunset, getting into the Pacific ocean, falling in love and choosing to build a life with someone; all of these things happened during this life cycle. There were many mirrors held up to me during these times, and they were not always what I wanted to see. There was a lot of growth, and growing can be seismic and uncomfortable. But it was also a time of lots of light and excitement and hope. I was diving into things larger then I could understand, and that was amazing and scary and the right thing for me. I found a lot of inspiration from water. I chose the name water dog because I love to watch the reckless abandon and joy of dogs playing in the water.  It became a totem for me during this time, and a reminder. I think diving into things is how we come to know the things we know, whether that's an outward or inward journey. ​


For more visit www.kellymcfarling.com/
Water Dog is available now everywhere fine music is sold
and on Bandcamp @: kellymcfarling.bandcamp.com/album/water-dog