We recorded this video on September 15, 2011 in Missoula, Montana. I’m finally all settled into my new home and ready to start work in earnest on the new record I am making at AnimalTown Studios.

Still frame from the music video for The Painting

The mandolin player from the video, Dave Smith, says this is my best song yet. So I asked him to record it with me on YouTube. (Thanks, Dave!) I met Dave at the National Oldtime Fiddle Contest and Festival in Weiser, Idaho this summer. He’s fun to play with, and we’re doing a show together in his neck of the woods with Bruce Cannavaro on bass at the Undertown in Port Townsend, WA on Saturday, October 15.

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Download audio at http://907britt.bandcamp.com/track/the-painting.

THE PAINTING
words and music by Britt K. Arnesen

He traced all of our plans upon a canvas
An ordered mingling of lines
Tender like the first brush between us
Feathered, a sunset goodbye
And a finely painted face
Of some other lady
Whose picture don’t look like mine

Postcards and letters from their daydreams
Her young love and beauty made him blind
He traded our promises for her maybes
The mailbox a witness to his crime
And a neatly written name
Of some other lady
Whose song doesn’t sound like mine

Sorrow in the shadow of his freedom
He’d see heartache if he ever looked behind
Betrayal has a way of getting even
Hiding snakes in green grass on the other side
Where the painting hangs
In the home of some other lady
Whose colors don’t bleed like mine

A finely painted face
Of some other lady
Whose colors don’t fade like mine

Thanks to Jerry LaVine of Connections Film and Video and Van Horn Ely of Anchorage, Alaska for their help in making such a beautiful video. I never would have thought of a waltzing guitar kaleidoscope!

Words and music by Britt K. Arnesen. Recorded live in Spenard, Alaska.

Download audio with Richie Reinholdt on bass and mandolin, and read lyrics at http://907britt.bandcamp.com/track/ciel-toil-lamour-myst-re.

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Mama never took me to Yellowstone
Papa never drove us to Rushmore
Nobody showed me the Redwood Forest
Guess I gotta get there on my own

I was listening to a bunch of John Prine before this came out of me during February Album Writing Month. It’s kind of an Alaska girl anthem. If the audio player above doesn’t show up or work, here is a link to Mama Never Took Me to Yellowstone. Read on to see the video and rest of the lyrics.

Mama Never Took Me to Yellowstone, but in 2010 I took my son Canyon there!

MAMA NEVER TOOK ME TO YELLOWSTONE
by Britt K. Arnesen

Mama never took me to Yellowstone
Papa never drove us to Rushmore
Nobody showed me the Redwood Forest
Guess I gotta get there on my own
Guess I gotta get there on my own

I never went to the high school prom
Traded off my date for a fishing rod
I said hey honey wanna come along?
You’re coming or I’m going on my own
You’re coming or I’m going on my own

Said I’m gonna search this whole world over
Some day gonna find that four leaf clover
Can’t figure out why you don’t come over
And why I’m always fishing on my own
Why am I always fishing on my own?

Never met my love at the Eiffel Tower
I didn’t get invited to the baby shower
Seems like no one ever gets me flowers
Go and buy my own
Gonna grow my own

I’ve been searching this whole world over
Some day gonna find that four leaf clover
Hiking down a trail with my dog named Rover
You’re coming or I’m going on my own
You’re coming or I’m going on my own

I want to go to the Capitol
I wanna march on the Washington Mall
Soldier’s names from Vietnam
I wanna read them all
Yeah, I’m gonna read them all

I’m still searching this whole world over
Some day gonna find that four leaf clover
Don’t mind the waiting but we’re getting older
You’re coming or I’m going on my own
You’re coming or I’m going on my own

Mama never took me to Yellowstone
Papa never drove us to Rushmore
Nobody showed me the Redwood Forest
Guess I gotta get there on my own
You’re coming or I’m going on my own

Just when I think I’m nearing the end of an intense creativity binge, along saunters the enchanting Johnny-come-lately. Even after February Album Writing Month led me through 16 new songs, I still apparently had something left to say, though not in my native language.

Photo by James Krall of 907Britt performing at Pike's Waterfront Lodge for the Fairbanks Community Coop benefit brunch, February 2011

Writing en français was super-fun. I felt like I could be more…expressive. And the recording I made to demo the song, accentuated by emotive mandolin courtesy of Missoula’s own Richie Reinholdt, is my favorite of the new year. Richie also played bass on what you hear. I played both guitars and sang both parts. If the player above doesn’t work, you can listen to and download audio on 907Britt at Bandcamp, where I have also posted the lyrics.

It’s really fun to play Ciel Étoilé at my shows, a real crowd-pleaser. And the story is kind of interesting too…

It all started back in December when my Missoula friend and fellow songwriter Larry Hirshberg posted on Facebook that he had a dream with the number 227.1, and I commented the three numbers might be chords in a progression and that I would get to work on writing the waltz version…that night we were listening to rapper Lucas, who seamlessly and sexily combines French and English lyrics. I challenged myself that night to write a rap waltz. I figured the rap would be in English and the chorus in French. I wanted it to be about a beautiful but untrustworthy woman, so the original chorus was “on ne sait jamais ce qu’elle veut faire” (you never know what she wants to do). Ciel Étoilé uses 2 (Am), 1 (G), and 5th (D7) chords, so Larry’s number really did become a song. I didn’t use the 7th chord per se, but I felt like I used it in spirit with the D7… I messed around with piano and bass parts on my Garageband that night but gave up when the inspiration spigot turned off, figuring I might ask a guest artist to write and sing the rap part. The first draft is embarrassingly hip hop-esque for this folk singer…I stuffed it into the “write the rest later” hopper…

Later came one dark, starry night in April when I reached into the hopper to find the perfect song to calm my weary heart after a spring of writing music like a Crazy Lady. It must have been the right time because the song took over and wrote itself in a fit of passion. And then not only did I feel better, but I had a purdy little love song to show for it.

Big thanks to Frederique Berenger for helping me with spelling and grammar! And endless thanks to Richie Reinholdt for playing mandolin and bass on the demo. I can’t wait to get down into to the studio with him, and a real piano, and get to work on my next record. Surely this song will be on it.

Ciel Étoilé
Words and music by 907Britt Kristine Arnesen

On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
L’amour mystère

De l’autre côté du soleil
Une poème que la nuit m’a soufflé
Avec toi dans un rêve j’ai dansé
That first kiss, le ciel etoilé

On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
L’amour mystére

Je brule de fièvre all for you
Cette maladie me coutera tout
I never stop loving you even when you tell the truth
Le matin tu auras disparu
Raison, nous l’avons perdue

On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
L’amour mystère et le ciel étoilé

Embrasse-moi avant de t’en aller, donne-moi
Quelque chose que je peux garder
As I cross endless oceans of shame
Calling your name
Oh comme j’espère

On ne sait jamais comme j’espère
On ne sait jamais
On ne sait jamais
L’amour mystère
Le ciel étoilé

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.

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…)

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.

Yesterday my Aunt Donna posted a picture of her mother on Facebook. Grandma Rosemary’s my age in the photo. Even looks a little like me. Looking at her photo turned to praying yesterday. I imagined sitting on the bench dedicated to her outside the San Juan Community Theater in Friday Harbor, a place she loved. It snowed on the bench that day. She wrote me a letter then, told me that she had been worried about me. When she died, I was going through a rough time. She loves me. She is amazed to hear how well I can sing and play guitar now, she listens in on me a lot. She said she’d rather listen to me play music than worry about me. She knows I play for her a lot.

When the tears and prayers were finished, I wrote the song I couldn’t write back then, the night I sang her to sleep. Now I can write Grandma Rosemary back in song and tell her I’m okay. It’s okay to fly, Rosemary, because I’m alright now. We’re alright. That’s what I want her to know.

My grandmother, Rosemary Marshall Kowalski. A bench at the San Juan Community Theater is dedicated to her. If you sit there, she might write you a letter in perfect cursive.

ROSEMARY FLY
By Britt K. Arnesen

There’s a bench outside the theater
Sometimes I sit and wait to meet to her
In a prayer or in a letter
Perfect cursive, even in goodbye

I sing my reply, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing I’m alright
Rosemary fly, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing I’m alright

This song’s a letter I felt her send me
Down through forever through heaven’s sky
It finds me better but there’s still weather
I still sing but I still cry

Rosemary fly, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing I’m alright
Rosemary fly, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing I’m alright

A golden angel, young voice singing
Favorite faces, throughout the evening
We are her children and her children’s children
Beside her through the night

And the song I couldn’t write was Rosemary Fly
Fly knowing we’re gonna be alright
Rosemary fly, rosemary fly
Fly knowing we’re alright

Rosemary fly, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing we’re alright
Rosemary fly, Rosemary fly
Fly knowing we’re alright

And on a side note, here is Canyon and I this afternoon. Quotable:

“All my mom ever wants to do is play music…and sometimes I get bored of it, sometimes I like it a lot, and sometimes I even walk downstairs to turn off the music in the middle of the night when she’s still listening to it…that’s how it is.”

Song and recording: Richie Reinholdt
Video cast and crew: Van Wolf, 907Britt, Nate Merryman, Adam Chisholm
Filmed at the Octagon in Fairbanks, Alaska on January 29, 2011

LYRICS:

you carve your name upon hearts with finger nails of steel
you hide behind your wall of stone surveying the field
with nine hundred seven ways to stumble and ensnare
queen of all your young domain the life you will not share

I want you but I need my sorrow
I need you now but not tomorrow
maybe later in a song you’ll be the one I need
but I’ve got another dream to feed

scenes from Greek tragedies you act out for yourself
a place for all discarded lovers right there on the shelf
easy loves for possessions not for faithful hearts
lives begin and end the same rent and torn apart

heads are dashed to melon softness on your rocky shore
towering above the storm a citadel’s reward
ramparts sheltering the tears shed when shadows fall
will no prince charming find the key to break down the walls

years go by with no relief no answer to your prayers
winters barely shining sun lights of northern glare
planned migrations seaside living speculative dreams
tumble though your open fingers tearing at the seams

907Britt dancing in the music video for "Talk to Me" by Richie Reinholdt

—- Please remember to support independent music! —-

You can purchase Richie Reinholdt’s music directly from the artist here and give him some lovin’ on Facebook too. You can buy 907Britt’s music here.

Thanks for listening! Now talk to me, please. You can leave a comment here on on YouTube or Facebook.

907Britt on the cover of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner on New Year's Eve. The other lovely lady pictured is teen singer-songwriter Mariah Ver Hoef, who reminds me a little of myself about 11 years ago, though she's certainly more polished than I was. Sure wish we'd had GarageBand back then.

Thanks to my hometown paper, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner for reviewing Continental Divide and including my debut album in their list of “hot” local music from 2010. I especially appreciate Glenn BurnSilver’s encouraging words: “…’Continental Divide’ features 12 original tracks examining — with humor, sadness or wry insight — life, love, family and travel. Arnesen effortlessly mixes elements of folk, country and bluegrass for a solid album of well-constructed catchy numbers…” It was a year ago this month I finished recording the last song and sent it off to Brian Hazard for mixing and mastering. It sure didn’t feel “effortless” then, but a year of touring has boosted my confidence and abilities. If you haven’t heard me play since 1999, time to check it out!

Gearing up for my 3rd Montana tour has left me very little time to blog about it! I’ve been rehearsing like mad to live up to the honor of meeting—and playing with—one of my favorite songwriters, Richie Reinholdt. He joins me this Sunday at Symes Hot Springs. We’ll form a trio with Britt Smith in Livingston on Tuesday, January 11. I also have solo shows planned on both sides of the Continental Divide. (Remember you can download my title track, Continental Divide, for free on my streaming audio page.)

Canyon listening to Richie Reinholdt while snuggling Jeffrey the Kitty

If you Facebook, that’s a great way to keep track of all of this musical nonsense.

Here is the schedule:

Saturday, January 8: Solo at Ten Spoon Organic Vineyard in Missoula

Sunday, January 9: Trading sets with Richie Reinholdt at Symes Hot Springs from 4-6pm

Tuesday, January 11: It’s the Double-Britt-Header featuring Richie Reinholdt…I’ve nicknamed Britt Smith 406Britt to avoid confusion. Starting at 9:30pm at the historic Murray Bar in downtown Livingston (across from the Depot that I sing about)

Friday, January 14: Have a classy dinner at the Staggering Ox in Helena while I play solo. 6-9pm

Saturday, January 15: Woohoo! I get to play at Norris Hot Springs again!!! 7-9:30pm

I really appreciate all the support Montana has shown for my music and I can’t wait to come back. Although I am meeting more and more kind friends from the 406, I still know precious few people in the Big Sky State. If you know anyone who lives in any of these areas, please let them know about the folk singer from Alaska who is coming from so far away just to sing and play guitar for them. =)

And thanks a bunch to Ovation Guitars for sending me a brand new guitar just in time for this trip. It was a wonderful Christmas present and I am breaking it in well.

On a completely unrelated topic, here is the PDF of Britt’s public records request I want to share with my Alaska friends. I didn’t have a better place to put it than on my website, since it’s too big to email. The Anchorage Press anointed me the “harshest critic” of Alaska’s $100 million film incentive (subsidy). As a small business owner, I believe in a level playing field where each of us can succeed or fail based on the merits of our own products and ideas, rather than our membership in a Good Ole Boys Club or our eligibility for obscure and expensive government programs. I can also think of a hundred million better ways to spend a hundred million dollars. I’ve been trying to learn more about where the money’s going but the State likes to keep industry “secrets” that the industry itself can’t even keep. So the records I received on a CD in the mail are heavily redacted. Still, some of you may find it interesting to see who has applied for (and received) these transferable tax credit incentives, and I encourage you to learn more.

For a historical perspective, here is the “White Paper” I presented as my citizen testimony to the House Finance Committee in March 2008.