With the release of our album Until in Italy this week, I thought I’d write about a few of the tracks. . .
“Until” – I’d been watching a DVD of The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg, and falling madly in love with its vibrant colors, with Catherine Deneuve, but mostly, with Michel Legrand’s haunting score. There was such longing and melancholy and beauty in his songs, that naturally, I wanted to write something in the same vein. Around the same time, I was introduced by a friend to a wonderful singer-songwriter named Julianna Raye. She was visiting Nashville. We met and quickly bonded over our love of bossa nova and French pop. She was only in town for a few days, so we wrote together as much as our schedules would allow. We’d finished three songs in two days, and were a little burnt out. We had one more evening session, and talked about canceling it. Didn’t we already have enough? But then we figured we might as well try to write. If something didn’t gel within an hour, we’d stop. Immediately, we got into this minor key groove, and Julianna sang the opening melody lines. And I thought, “How can I wait until / counting the days until.” I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I loved the idea of the word “until” ending each line. The word was so open-ended. It seemed to have a built-in elipsis after it. Hopeful but without a guarantee. An hour later, the song was finished.
Most of the song was recorded on my laptop, at Molly’s house in the middle of winter. It was drafty enough already in there, but we had to turn off the heat so the noise wouldn’t get onto the vocal track. I think she was wearing a hat and scarf while she sang it. The string arrangement was done afterwards by our friend Chris Carmichael. He is also a big Umbrellas Of Cherbourg fan, and the only thing I had to say to him was “Think Michel Legrand.”
It’s still one of my favorite songs from the album.
