Twitter has been a great music discovery tool for the couple plus years that I’ve been blogging. A few weeks ago, I found Phoenix artist Harper Nilson and really enjoyed listening to his music. Click play on “Hope” and see if your enjoyment level goes up. Read the story behind the song below.
Story Behind “Hope”
At the time I was three years deep a six year relationship. We had not only moved in together but we took the added step of buying a house in the burbs!
And then it happened, the first night that I took the dogs out for their walk, ambling down to the end of the road, standing in front of the Dairy Queen and realizing I had made a huge life mistake and gone down the wrong path.
It actually started earlier when I started to notice that all those little things I thought she loved and accepted about me, now seemed to cause her endless irritation. And so I was lost, attempting to make some sense of my situation by writing the lyrics that eventually made up the song “Hope”.
It’s never been performed live, although I’d be curious to learn how an audience would react to it. It was written on an acoustic guitar but found its legs once I put the bass/guitar licks in (very roughly borrowed from the Beatles “Drive My Car”). The song for me addresses disappointment when you discover that the person you love actually doesn’t understand you or your deepest dreams and desires at all. They fail to have your back, expecting you to change to suit their needs and so you feel yourself disappearing into the relationship.
Harper Nilson Bio
Like so many other music people, for me it all started with piano lessons at the age of 6. Actually, no… It all really started with my parents’ record player.
At that time my family lived in Amherst, Mass and my dad was a professor at the University. The rock music of the 60s and early 70s was everywhere including our home and I grew up absolutely steeped in it, constantly pulling out records from the cabinet, sitting in front of the speakers, reading over the cover notes. Later when we moved to Southern California, the 80s New Wave sound also influenced me greatly. Over time I found the need to write my own music, drawing from these periods when music was central to our lives. That need continues for me to the present day.