So I've tried shooting this on four different days.
I think I need to let go if it a little bit more, I need to just wear
pajamas and just know I'm going to say dumb things and that's that.
So, um, okay
Here we are--Behind The Songs! Where I tell you
so many more private things, and feel like I'm gonna throw up!
It's a lot of things really. Specifically, when I was writing this song...
I've always struggled with a kind of depressy thing in my life, where
it's just there sometimes and I just wake up and
it's hanging over me.
And so this song--part of it was a frustration, being like--how have I
not learned how to deal with these feelings?
And then also the song is about my struggle with social anxiety, which
I've come so far in the past few years, but for the vast majority of
my life, I feel like I didn't really know how to be myself around
other humans. Like my family, Jesse, a few other people I could sit around
them and be myself, and then other than that, like if I go to a party,
I was just like, I don't know how to be me anymore, and I don't know
how to have conversations.
Again this is better now, but for a while I really didn't and
I would leave every social interaction, whether it was a party or
a small dinner with friends, just crying and being like I don't know
how to do this.
And Jesse would be like, "Just be yourself."
And I'm like--I don't know how to do that.
It it kind of just would disappear, and then I would just be
sitting there stuck in my head like, "please think of something to say",
"please think of one thing to say" and I couldn't. I have finally made
some progress on that but it's a really really hard one.
I think the answer is.
We are just always learning. We're never just going to have
learned it and have life figured out.
It's like--I learned it last year and I learned it a bit more yesterday
and then I'm learning it today and I'll probably learn it tomorrow and
in 10 years time. Hopefully we're just always learning and always
growing--which can be frustrating, but it's part of being a human and so
I'm trying to embrace that more and be a little less hard on myself
when I haven't figured it all out.
It was a huge learning experience for me.
I just wanted to do everything on this island by myself.
So it was the first one. I've always written all my songs by
myself, but it was the first one that I produced and recorded by myself
(and have no idea what I was doing)
And then I wanted to direct and edit and color music videos, and it felt
exciting, and then you get there and you're like, oh I have no idea
what I'm doing!
I actually got myself accidentally into a really bad headspace, and I
was trying to find a way out of it--which is kind of what the song
is about--
And so I'd get to a location and I'd still be really bummed
because I felt like I had no idea what I was doing and I just like,
I don't know. Maybe I'm supposed to sit here and I don't know, I'll pick up this thing
'cause I don't know what I'm doing.
And it was rough,
but then, as it went, it was a reminder--by the end
we happened upon this insane field. It was sunset and pastel and the
mountains were beautiful and it was quiet, and there birds, and
everything felt perfect.
And it was this "duh" moment where I was like, oh, yeah.
I just needed to be present.
I just needed to be living and learning and that's okay.
I've never done this before, so yeah, it was hard. And had I
not resisted that so much maybe it would have felt a little bit better
and I could have enjoyed it.
Oh, yeah, I'm really bad at favorites.
But if I can call out one that made me feel a thing...
And, so some of you heard me talk about this, but when I write songs,
it's not a very conscious process.
I'm not sitting there being like, "what's a poetic way to say that?" or "what am I
trying to say?" That'd be cool but my brain can't do that.
I just sit down and then a song just tumbles out of me. It's like I'm
finding it in the air, and it's a very weird process. So I often times don't
really get to see the lyrics until it's done and really think
about them.
And so when I really thought about that lyric after it coming out of me
it felt so intense. This is what I pictured.
I pictured being on the side of a mountain...
And then a giant avalanche coming down--
like the kind you can't escape.
It's going to get you. And this feeling in my heart of--
so I could run--I could run and turn the other way and
pretend like I'm going to escape this thing--but I know I'm not.
OR--I could just close my eyes and brace myself to be, you know,
I don't know... killed by an avalanche?
That's so dark.
I'm sorry, but that's what I made me feel, and in this in this scenario
it's like the avalanche was my emotion, or what we're struggling with in life
and I spent a lot of life looking the other way and and running from
it and pushing those things down, and more and more
I find that like you cannot work through them,
you can't move past them or learn from them,
if you're not willing to have them fully fully take you over.
And so I guess that's what this was about--just facing it.
I guess I was a little chicken because I'm closing my eyes.
But yeah, letting it fully take you and letting myself feel these emotions
Which is intense. Feeling emotions is really intense, but I think it's
important work.
I don't know how I'm supposed to end these.
I haven't really thought this through, but obviously there's 10 songs in the
album, and this is the first song, and I've already spoken WAY too long.
So, I'm going to get you back to your lives. Go on.
But yeah, it is In The Waiting anniversary month
and I just wanted to do this to celebrate. If you haven't listened to
the album In The Waiting, it came out 1 year ago.
It is so important to me.
You can listen on Spotify, iTunes, Deezer--anywhere music exists
this album exists. And you can also pre-order a vinyl!
If you go to Kina Grannis.com you can order yourself a vinyl.
More songs coming at you guys soon! Thank you for watching!
That's it! Bye!