Sandra McCracken

Red Balloon, a few words...

I had a baby last year and I must admit, I spent a lot of time wondering if it would all be downhill after that.  No more songs?  No more free time?  Or would I have so much free time, I’d become a vacuum of nothing-to-say-ness.  Just apron strings and laundry for the next eighteen years.

As it turns out, excessive hormones and fear of the unknown were the only hurdles.  Once the baby arrived, I was taken over by fresh intuition and creativity.  So much so that when it came time to make record number seven, I simply went upstairs into the tiny, pieced-together, home studio I share with my chief partner-in-crime, Derek Webb -- a spare bedroom with a second-hand desk, an Apple desktop, a few microphones, and an old version of Pro Tools -- and started recording.

Those initial demos were unlike any I’d ever made:  relaxed, intimate, and entirely homegrown.  I recorded them alone, late at night or early in the mornings, without thinking about making “keeper” versions.  And when Derek and I went back to listen, the performances had so much character and raw emotion, they literally became the record itself.  Over several months, Cason Cooley (who lives in the neighborhood) joined the mix, and we added keyboard parts, background vocals, bass, a few other orchestral elements, and finally, live drums on a few songs.  We gave it time to stew, coming back to it over months while we toured and lived and changed diapers.  It was the exact opposite of the conventional record-making process:  pre-production, then two weeks of live tracking with a band, then vocals.  But it was perfect for me and for this batch of songs, because everything we did had to answer to those initial moments of clear, unfiltered performance.  We did our best to simply listen to the songs and stay out of their way.

I’ve always considered myself an abstract songwriter of non-fiction.  I’ve tended to focus on the sound of words and melodies over the communication of specific ideas.  But this time, I wanted to connect more directly with the listener.  I wanted all these songs to be about something in particular.  Which sounds odd, I know.  Isn’t that what it is to be a songwriter?  Maybe sometimes.  But repeating this mantra genuinely helped me give shape to these stories -- and inspired me to reveal my story and my soul in ways I never have before.  Which is why I thought it was time I put my face on the cover.

The red balloon of the title is a symbol of childhood, of hope, of freedom.  The title itself is a nod to the Oscar-winning, Albert Lamorisse film, The Red Balloon, which has even more to say about childhood dreams, tragedy and ultimate transcendence.  All the best stories and songs have these elements in spades.  Thanks for being part of mine. 

Happy listening.