Writing Through Crisis
Afton Wolfe
Cris Cohen: Songs like “Crooked Roads” allude to the medical trials and tribulations your wife has undergone. Is that a song you wanted to write or had to write?
Afton Wolfe: It was unavoidable. Had things turned out differently, it wouldn’t have made the album. I finished that song the night before she went into surgery, December 5th. I had it kind of written, but that melody and a few phrases — the very first phrase “on the life of what you expected” and the very last phrase — just wouldn’t get out of my mind.
While we were going through all that anxiety, it was whatever I could put my mind on to keep moving forward and stay away from fear and casting bad magic and negative energy into the world. I tried to put in positive energy and gratitude. Hopefully you receive that, and we did.
The night before, I was sitting at the piano and those lines came to me: “We’re going to make it through the 6th of December, till then all power and guidance and wisdom to Dr. Sarah Bick,” who was her neurosurgeon. I think I found that and was able to reinforce her doctor’s utmost confidence, wisdom, power, and competence, along with my wife’s unbelievable courage and strength and steadiness throughout that entire process.
It also happened to rhyme with the line before it: “It’s the best life that I can remember,” because I don’t know if it’s the best life I’ve ever had. That made sense and rhymed with December.
Cris Cohen: How do you shift from the therapy of getting it out of your system to being the editor asking, “Is this a good song?”
Afton Wolfe: That’s a great question. I try not to put too much value judgments on songs because different people have different values. If everybody liked it, it wouldn’t be art, it’d be dopamine.
I know that, for me, a good song is one that’s sincere. I cry still every time I play that song. It brings me back to those times. To me, that’s what makes it a good song. I mean it.
When I play it, I am back in that period of time. Not even necessarily that period, but two weeks later when everything had unwound and she was fine. When we walked into the hospital room right after her surgery and she was cracking jokes. That’s the time it puts me in. That gratitude and relief. God, we made it.
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