No Kind of Angel

In No Kind of Angel, the first of my February Album Writing Month Songs, it’s a wistful goodbye for Lil and her darling at the railway station. The song opens with an intentional melodic and lyrical nod to the timeless Tennessee Waltz. A dream from the Livingston Depot, where a train will soon be boarding…download for free from the player above, watch the video and read on for lyrics and the story of why this song is special to me.

NO KIND OF ANGEL
Words and music by 907Britt Kristine Arnesen

At the Depot, Lil and her darling another train in the night
Joining fellow wives and families kissing loved ones goodbye
She’s embraced him at the station some five hundred times
And it’s never gotten easier sayin’ goodbye
Hardest part of lovin’ him is letting him fly
——-
She’s been waltzing in the garden ‘neath the green northern lights
Trading Fridays with the neighbors, sharing birthdays and pies
She wonders if he’s faithful; she’s no kind of angel
It’s a risk they’ve been taking making love between trains
He said, “The hardest part of leaving is the missing each day”
She said, “The hardest part of loving you is feeling this way”
The hardest part of loving is the living each day
——
Queue up a waltz for Lil and her darling at the depot this night
They’ll twirl all around the floor before they’re boarding the line
She’s embraced him at this station some five hundred times
And it’s never gotten easier sayin’ goodbye
He says, “The hardest part of leavin’ is the look in your eyes”
She says the hardest part of lovin’ him is letting him fly
Yeah, the hardest part of lovin’ him is letting him fly
Yeah the hardest part of lovin’ is the sayin’ goodbye

907Britt performing at The Murray Bar in Livingston, Montana (October 2010). Photo by Evan Phillippe.

Livingston, Montana enchants me. I have been there a handful of times now. The Livingston Roundup was my 1st rodeo over 4th of July weekend in 2010. I played acoustic on the grassy treed strip by the Depot for the arts festival. Later an impromptu singalong in Sacajewea Park for the kiddos. Then I performed solo in October 2010 at The Murray Bar and again there January 2011 accompanied by Britt Smith (of Bozeman) and Richie Reinholdt (of Missoula).

Each time I visit Livingston I wish to walk around in circles downtown for many hours. I’ve been too hot there. Too cold as well, with the wind. But I’ve always really enjoyed it. Each time I felt wistful leaving that small town. Something about the brick buildings. Pigeons on the roof of the Depot. The thought of people saying goodbye at that Depot, back when it was really a railway station. Echoes of all the goodbyes whispered there…

And then this thing about a guitar.

My 1st pick

You see, the day before I played that show in January in Livingston, two things happened in Britt’s Guitar World. #1 thing: Richie, who backed me up in Livingston, had given me a most-helpful guitar lesson the day before our show and I had just begun using a pick for the first time (that’s a whole ‘nother side story, but I will briefly thank him for kindly expressing to me straight up when something is holding me back. In 12 years of playing guitar, no one had ever even hinted that I should try using a pick. Yes, my fingerpicking is fine, but not knowing how to hold a pick was holding me back from exploring all sorts of new musical places. I really appreciate Richie’s help and I can’t wait to play with him again and grab another guitar lesson. For anyone who lives in Missoula, I highly recommend Richie Reinholdt as a guitar teacher. Don’t even get me started about how great his music is…)

Photo by James Krall

The #2 thing that happened was I played an old guitar at Boyd’s House of Fine Instruments in Missoula. When I entered Greg Boyd’s store, it was the first to catch my eye, because it looked old and used. Even though I had just met this guitar, I felt like I had always known it. Love at first note, the low G…Parting with that dinged-up 1957 Gibson J-50 had felt like a timeless goodbye. Though I played it for a couple hours at Boyd’s shop I didn’t know if my love was real and the question haunted me. (Yes, it turns out my love is real, and I have a whole February Album Writing Month the guitar wrote with me to show for it.) Dreaming about the guitar, I began writing its longing melody, thinking to myself, “I can’t wait to play this song on that guitar.”

I played the melody obsessively in various arrangements for about two weeks back home in Fairbanks waiting for the guitar to arrive in the mail. Like our character Lil waiting for the train to return. She just wanted one more waltz. I just wanted to play this waltz on that guitar. When my fingers became sore from playing it day and night on the orange guitar Ovation gifted me, I would switch to piano, where I learned the melody wanted to waltz through F on the way to E minor.

click to enlarge photo by James Krall

Just when I thought the melody could remain an instrumental forever, I discovered lyrically that something was the “hardest part” of something else… heartache, that’s the hardest of all! And then all the sudden I was there in the Depot, waltzing around the complexity of a heartfelt goodbye. The final version is nearly identical to the emotional first-person rough draft. The only change I made, a good suggestion, was to switch to the 3rd person and let a narrator convey Lil’s experience with the feel of an intimate interview. To relay what it really means in every day life to love someone you have to say goodbye to. How hard that is, and why…

 

Pigeons blanketing the roof of the Depot. I took pictures of the pigeons, the only pictures of our show and the band, and then lost my camera. Yes, Livingston, I’ll be back.

The Livingston pigeons flew up to Fairbanks later on in February Album Writing Month when they found the sidewalk in “Getting the Paper“. Livingston and Paradise Valley provide the scene for many of my of songs lately, most notably (“his” side of the) Continental Divide, Where’s Wayne, Daisy, and Waterfall.

 

I took this picture to show you what I call the World's Most Scenic Tire Swing. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, I can't really prove it. Just the most scenic one I have seen in memory.

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