​Adelaide Tai // “Blue”

Adelaide Tai’s latest offering “Blue” is an evocative patchwork of montages about whiskey soaked nights and missed connections. The narrative is interspersed with dynamic shifts highlighting its gossamer accompaniment. It’s a song that evokes Cat Power and Ryan Adams lovelorn anthems. “Blue” ends with a marvelous turnaround; the speaker’s eyes—which were clouded by smoke in the first verse—are now brimming with starlight as they reflect on the end of their relationship. It’s a watercolor reverie. Adelaide joined me for a brief chat about songwriting, repetition, and process.
 
You can download a free copy of “Blue” here.
 
SC: I love how this is a song that moves in images—blue eyes, white shirt, etc. Can you tell me about the use of the visual in this song?
 
AT: Blue is a scrapbook in song form. In processing an event or relationship I recall a collage of visuals. The object’s textures and colors serve as a raft in a sea of abstract feeling. The melody, I hope, strings the images together in order to create a story. 
 
SC: There’s a lot of repetition of eyes and seeing throughout “Blue”. Can you tell me a little about that?
 
AT: When I wrote this song I was thinking about how you can have such a strong connection with a person that it feels cosmic and at the same time have an impossible time communicating with them in an earthly way. That’s what “Starlight in your eyes” refers to—a cosmic connection only accessed through the eyes and the soul, but any time you try to reach one another some other way it is a disaster. 
 
The eyes are the subject and the voice in the song. As a subject it is powerful—the focal point about which the action moves around. As the voice, it has surrendered—a witness to the experience and at the same time unable to affect change. This is the sense I had in writing the lyrics, a sense of being at the mercy of an outside force and numb to it. 
 
SC: I love the biting turn in the chorus of “you’re gonna bring me down / right where I wanted to be”. Can you tell me about this chorus?
 
AT: If where you are is down, that’s where I want to be also—that’s the idea. It turns out in real life that’s not a recipe for success :) 
 
SC: What’s your writing process like? Do you write every day? Or wait for inspiration?
 
AT: I usually write while I’m practicing. Inspiration finds me usually when I already have the tools handy. 
 
SC: How does your community of songwriters inspire you?
 
AT: I am most inspired by everyone’s varied process. There’s not one way to write a song and I love to see how my friends begin in a place that I wouldn’t think of—like starting with structure vs. melody, or planning the chorus before the verses. It helps me to be free.