18 songs about love, loss & everything in between that are equal parts joyous, devastating & most of all, relatable. Dreamabilly folk-pop chanteuse Alexandra Scott's stunning vocals brim with passion & fragile honesty.

Sorrow on a White Horse

Stranger

That Honey

To Get Over

Your Shirt is a Window

I signed up for a 7-day Fearless Songwriter Challenge: one song a day for 7 days. I haven't been writing a lot & I'm about to head off to a two-week writing residency to finish my book, so a project where I write a lot & write fast sounded great. The prompt for Day 1 was 'What's On The Table.' I wrote this first song really quickly & I drummed on my table while recording it on my iPhone (low low lowtech) just to amuse myself & be meta.

What's On The Table? (Fearless Songwriter Challenge, Day 1)

The prompt for Day 2 of the Fearless Songwriter Challenge was 'Bumblebee.' The second thing that came to mind was Muhammad Ali's famous 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,' and a quote from 'When We Were Kings' (about the Ali/George Forman fight in Africa in 1974) that I used to have on my answering machine - 'from the root to the fruit.'

The first thing that came to mind was a story my friend & former bandmate Skeet shared about a month ago when his father died. Skeet is kind of a short guy. He said his father used to call him 'Bumblebee' & when he asked why, his dad said, 'Bumblebees aren't supposed to fly, but they do. If anyone ever told you you were short, son, you didn't hear them.'

I had a pretty awful father & I had to cut him out of my life when I was 18, which cut a piece out of me, & Father's Day is my least favorite holiday. That story & all the love in it stayed with me.

I was surprised to see how much more shy I am about writing upbeat songs than about slow, super-intimate, harrowing songs (about which I have no fear whatsoever). This one was not easy for me and I'm not convinced it's done, but it's time to start the next one.



Bumblebee (Fearless Songwriter Challenge, Day 2)

The prompt for Day 3 of the Fearless Songwriter Challenge was 'alchemy.' 

I'm a big fan of songs that show peoples' hearts. I could not be less interested in maudlin or self-pitying songs. 

So I recorded this on ukulele, because it's such a happy instrument, and I wanted to see if I could sing about lots of intimate, private, hard things in the most open, level way possible. Or rather, in the most open, level way possible after having just written the song two hours earlier.

I might not leave this one up very long, but enjoy for now.

Turn Me Into Something Finer (Fearless Songwriter Challenge, Day 3)

Day 4's prompt was 'garden.' I love gardens; I make gardens; I'm always working in my friends' gardens when I run out of room in my own garden; so the challenge was to do something other than write an ooey-gooey hippy love song to gardens, because I already have three or four of those in my catalog.

This turned out to be more of a love song to the mountains of Virginia (with a small shout-out to Texas in the first verse) where I grew up. I get homesick for the flora there.

I'm not sure about the title. 'Wild Rose' and 'Garden Flower' both seemed like ghastly titles to me, so I went with 'Can't Hold Me.' But it could as easily have been called 'Fabio.' (NB: I don't know anyone named Fabio. That was a joke.)

Can't Hold Me (Fearless Songwriter Challenge, Day 4)

The prompt for Day 5 was 'I don't understand.'

I read it right before I read the news about Charleston.

That's about all I need to say about that except to explain who Leona is. She was my third Grandmother. She worked for my Grandmother and she loved me like her own and I loved her back. After my parents' divorce, when my brother and I had to spend time with our (abusive) father, we would run up to our Grandmother's house & visit Leona in the kitchen & she'd give us hugs & make us feel safe & loved, even though at that moment, we weren't.

Later in life I got to know her as an adult. We still loved each other as deeply as ever but she shared more of herself. She had one of the most fiery, funny spirits I've ever known.

I think it's safe to say that the events of today probably wouldn't really have broken her heart. She lived through the Civil Rights movement and things more terrible than most of us can imagine. She was tough. And wonderful. 

I miss her every day.

The world should be better by now.