Chicago-based, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Nora O’Connor recently released her solo album, My Heart via Pravda Records. O’Connor has spent many years touring and recording with a massive list of bands and performers including Neko Case and The New Pornographers, Iron and Wine, Andrew Bird, Robbie Fulks, and Mavis Staples, to name only a few. While she has previously released solo work, it has been 17 years since her last collection, making the arrival of My Heart even more of a cause for celebration. The album was recorded at Reliable Records, Kernal Studio, and Susu Studio in the Chicago area as well as Sonic Piranha in Phoenix, AZ with O’Connor and Alex Hall producing, helped along by Chicago singer/songwriter Steve Dawson on two tunes.
Nora O’Connor’s decision to create a new album actually arose from doing backyard shows during the pandemic period and may of her closest compatriots joined her to record the album, including some of her bandmates from The Flat Five, Casey McDonough, Scott Ligon, and Alex Hall, as well as Steve Dawson, Robbie Djersoe, and Jon Rouhouse. As its title may suggest, the album itself has some underlying threads relating to relationships, but as O’Connor attests, the common thread is really her personality as a songwriter and orchestrator, bringing emotive elements to the foreground and a thoughtful atmosphere in which to explore them. I spoke with Nora O’Connor about the genesis and recording of My Heart.
Hannah Means-Shannon: I heard that you did some local live playing in 2020. Did that contribute to your decision to create a new solo album?
Nora O’Connor: Like everyone else, my calendar got completely cleared and wiped away [by the pandemic]. Then I started playing these little backyard parties over the summer in 2020 when we slowly came out of our houses. I had written a couple of songs before that, so I started playing those songs in the solo set that I was curating. I love singing other peoples’ songs and I love curating music. I love finding songs that maybe you’ve never heard and maybe turning people on to an old Nanci Griffith song, or an old Harry Nilsson song, or an old Beach Boys song.
I like sharing them with people who will go home and look them up, but when playing these little yard shows, it kind of just came to be that I wanted more of my own songs. I just opened myself up to the process and the idea of making an album. I was curious: What is even in here? I hadn’t written songs in so long that I didn’t know what I had to offer. But I promised myself that I would ease up on myself and let the journey happen. I also challenged myself to do the work. I do have one cover on the album, but the rest is original. This is what came out.
HMS: Is it important to you not to think about what other people might think when you’re at an early stage of development, or is that always part of the process?
NO’C: I think, inherently, I’m an insecure person, so I’m always wondering what someone might think of my song, or my voice, or my whole being. [Laughs] But when I first started writing these songs, I sent a couple of my first demos to a couple of friends who are musicians and who I respect. It’s so hard to be objective about your own music. I sent a couple to Steve Dawson, who I recorded with for this record. I needed a peer to say, “Keep going.” It was helpful to send songs out to other musicians and ask, “Am I on to anything?”
HMS: I hadn’t thought about that, but it must be helpful if others contribute to your momentum in overcoming self-doubt.
NO’C: Exactly. With some other songs, though, I thought, “Just trust yourself.” We all want external validation, but life is an internal job. I just needed a nudge. I like working with other people, so it was different for me to take the reins on this and be the decision maker on this. I actually love being told what to do, I’m a great student, so this was different. But then, it’s so gratifying trusting myself to say what I want and sing how I want. I hope it’s not 17 years until I do it again!
HMS: Me too. Did you have any sense of what “your” sound might sound like after going for so long without writing original music?
NO’C: I think I just had to come to terms with the fact that I am Soft Rock. I am kind of folky. I am 80% water and 20% 70s AM radio. That’s just kind of what’s in my DNA. I’m super-influenced by 70s Soft Rock. I hate talking about styles, since I think music is just music, but I’m talking about acoustic-guitar driven instrumentation with electric guitar, keyboards, Hammond piano, drums, and bass. That’s what I do.
HMS: For you, it’s definitely true that “music is music” because you have been so proficient and fluent in playing so many different types of music. That’s something I felt like I could hear on this album, that fluidity that almost breaks down barriers between different types of music. However, the vibe for each song also feels important while some ideas link them together.
NO’C: When I was writing the songs, I felt like they were not super-autobiographical, since they were based on stories, ideas, and my experiences of life. But I also felt like it was okay to be vulnerable and talk about things like our mind-body connection. The thread on the record is that it’s me. One song on the album, “Cambridge Cold”, reminded me of “My Backyard 2.0”. It has a similar kind of driving guitar and drums. It was what the song wanted to be, so I let it be. I tried to let the songs do the driving.
I also worked with Alex Hall, whose studio is where we did a lot of the recording, and he plays drums and piano. He’s the drummer in The Flat Five, so we’ve worked together a lot. He knows my vibe and we just kind of went with it.
HMS: You have some great friends working with you on this album, bringing in things like organ, Wurlitzer, and even Mellotron.
NO’C: Yes, I really got into the Mellotron! At the end of the recording process, I discovered Midi flutes and strings, too. I want to use more next time. We also used Harmonium on a couple songs. I was discovering what I liked as I went, and I’m logging all that for next time.
HMS: By the way, what were your friends’ reactions when you told them that you were finally going to do another solo album?
NO’C: [Laughs] There was a lot of “It’s about time!” But it was given lovingly. They were very supportive. I’m 55 years old. I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’ve managed to weed out the assholes. I feel like I’m blessed in that I’m surrounded by people who lift me up and support me. They don’t care if I do it or not, they just want me to be happy.
HMS: The title track, “My Heart” surprised me because it is so piano driven. Given your background, I assumed that most songs on the album would be based around the guitar. How did that happen?
NO’C: That is so funny. I brought that song to the studio and started playing it on the guitar with Alex [Hall] and Casey [McDonough]. I was teaching them the form of the song. Then I thought, “Let’s record it.” But I wasn’t feeling anything special about it. Then I sat down at the piano and I just started playing that melody. That’s about all I can do on the piano.
Alex can actually play piano, so we both played on the song. Casey brought in the bass and things just started clicking. The song came into the studio that morning as an acoustic guitar song, but I left the studio that day with a piano Pop song. The song just kind of took over and took on a life of its own. It was a great day. We figured it out. Alex played the guitar once and we kept it. I sang the song once and we kept it. It just came together even though it sounded different than anything I’d ever done. It’s a special tune.
HMS: I think it’s interesting because the piano and the beat are pretty robust and set the tone for the core ideas and feelings of the albums. It’s got a corner-stone feeling. Now the video is very cool, very funny, and also somewhat serious. Did you get involved with how it would go?
NO’C: It was kind of my friend Joey Garfield’s idea, who directed the video. He wanted there to be someone who was dressed up in a heart costume, or in red, running around town and being somewhat of a menace. He asked a costumer to make a costume and gave them some ideas. We didn’t know until the morning that we started shooting what the costume was going to look like. His sister had also just bought a house and had moved the piano in, so we had this great location and lighting. I also various friends to be in it as cameos. It’s a delightful little short. I love it.
HMS: It’s been a while since I came across a song or music video that suggests that the heart can be a little bit of a menace. Because it’s blind, isn’t it? That’s how it comes across. It can wreak havoc ways, and the song also personifies it, so that totally works.
NO’C: There’s also this notion that the heart knows things, and behind the heart is your gut instinct and intuition. But our nervous system is affected by our thoughts and we get physical feelings to do with emotions. My chest gets hard feeling when I’m sad, stressed, and anxious. When the heart is light and soft, we’re probably breathing well, and aren’t caught up in our busy minds. It’s all connected.
HMS: You mentioned the cover song, “It’s Alright Now”, as one that you included. What made you choose it to include on the album?
NO’C: I was turned onto Margo Guryan a couple of tours ago. Then, I dove into her whole output in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s just an interesting story. She made these records when she was young, and then she just kind of stopped. She wasn’t willing to do this song and dance and these things that women were expected to do writing songs and getting signed to labels at that time. Her songwriting is so smart and intelligent. She was classically trained in Jazz.
The chord progression of the song is super-challenging, then there’s the creepiness of this break-up song. We changed a couple things, using the vibraphone rather than the Mellotron. I assumed that I wanted to put a cover on the album because I usually do that, and that one felt right as well as being a nice challenge. It’s kind of a crazy song.
HMS: It’s a really unusual song and so interesting. The disjunction between the subject matter and the airy, almost angelic tone is intense. It’s not what’s expected at all. It makes you think. Is the order of the songs on the album important to you?
NO’C: Sequencing albums is really important to me. People have different ways of doing it. I did spend a good amount of time thinking about it, and my label, Pravda, shared some great ideas. There are some songs that kind of thread together and I like quick starts between songs. Those little tricks, like deciding how many seconds to put between songs, interest me. You try to keep a vibe and keep some palette cleansers before a more upbeat song.
HMS: I noticed that “Fare Thee Well”, of course, is the last one, and the wateriness of it makes for a great conclusion. But I also could see why it kind of needed to be by itself on there. It’s so evocative and has such strong imagery that it needs space.
NO’C: Yes. I also thought the title meant it would be a good final song, but I also couldn’t find another place for it, so it had to be last. When I wrote it, I knew that I needed to write one more for the album, and that one just came out. I started with the chords, and mumbling some things, then the ideas kind of came out of the idea of someone saying, “What do you mean, you don’t want to be with me anymore? I thought we were doing just fine.” It’s that kind of story of two people.
HMS: I think the calmness and exploration of the song is actually helpful. It’s an accepting kind of song rather than an angry one.
NO’C: It is accepting but it’s also about someone who wants to try one more time. That character knows that it’s probably over. These breakups don’t all need to be dramatic among grown-ups. It’s sad but okay. [Laughs] I love healthy break-up songs! I really do!
HMS: They are very unusual! They are not common at all. We probably need a lot more of them given it’s a very common human experience.
