The art of songwriting combines poetry and music, and Julian Talamantez Brolaski (they/them) has earned their bona fides at both. Brolaski makes traditional, inventive Americana music, adding poetic lyricism to melodies inspired by some of country and western music’s original recording stars and most beloved sounds. Classical piano lessons, the poetry and queer country music scenes on both coasts, and years spent studying languages gave Brolaski the foundation to create “sweet, cutting, and melancholy” (Country Queer) music with various bands and now as a solo artist.
On It’s Okay Honey, due out August 4th, slow, melancholy waltzes and rousing, upbeat numbers lend the album a variety of moods. The album’s 12 songs combine the language of classic country with lyrical innovation and pacing that reflect Brolaski’s point of view as a transgender poet of mixed Mescalero and Lipan Apache, Latinx, and settler heritages.
Today Glide is premiering the standout track “Joyin in Joy,” a seemingly simply country tune that actually unveils layers of richness as it unfolds. There is a simple galloping beat that works well with the twangy pedal steel that feels both classic and straightforward, complementing this lyrical true story of the joy of new love and friendship. There is also a simplicity in the lyrics that complements the music and resonates in a surprisingly deep manner.
Listen to the track and read our interview with Brolaski below…
What inspired you to write this song? What is the story behind it?
The song is a true story of the joy of new love and friendship. The inspiration came from a sunny afternoon when I was driving with some poets over a mountain from Lillehammer to Trondheim in Norway. I was there for a poetry festival with the American poets CAConrad and Ariana Reines. On the drive, CA taught us an old American folk song, and then our friend Martin Ingebrigtsen taught us a Norwegian folk song about a crow (“Over the mountain into Trondheim / Muskox peeking through the grey / CA taught us the old songs / And Martin went taloo talaa talaay”). “Taloo talaa talaay” was my mishearing or misremembering of the way Martin represented the sound of the crows in Norwegian. Along the way, we saw a muskox, and rolled around in the soft colorful mosses of the mountain.
Are you typically a lyrics-first or a music-first writer? How did this song come together?
I’m both. Sometimes a line or a phrase will come to me. I’m always writing things down in a little notebook I carry around in my pocket, to use in songs or poems. That’s one way I build a song. If I’m lucky, a melody will arise that fits the words. Sometimes a wordless melody floats down to me, often when I’m walking around or driving. Then I’ll record it into my phone, and every so often I go through my voice memos, and I get to elaborate these little bits of melody into a song. And invent some words for it. There can be elements of story, like in this song, but usually it’s more about creating an emotional landscape. Sometimes, and these are the best times, the words and the music arrive together. And it has this genuine magical feeling, a feeling as if the song could not have been otherwise. That’s what happened with this song.
Are there any lyric lines that you are particularly proud of or that really speak to you? What do you feel makes them resonate?
The poetic hook of the song is the phrase “joyin in joy.” And that was the first piece of the song that came to me; this one was one of the special ones that arrived fully formed with the melody. I enjoyed making the phrase “joyin in joy” and the playfulness of bringing together the verb “joyin” with the words “joy” and “in.” A sort of doubling of the idea of joy. And in the background, my vocal harmonies are going “joy, joy, joy” in a rising tone. I really wanted to make this feeling of overlapping and proliferating joy, which in the sentiment of the song, contains both the joy of friendship and the joy of falling in love.
If listeners can take away one thing from having heard this song, what do you hope that is?
I hope it makes them feel good. I hope it reminds them of a new love, and the pleasure of anticipating coming together with someone, that can almost be even more delicious than the thing itself.
How does this song fit in among the others on the album? How is it similar or different?
Well, it’s one of the few really medium-tempo songs. I like that it seems to move at a clip, but also somewhat leisurely, like riding a horse at a trot. I’m also way laid back in my vocal delivery; it’s meant to be soft and sweet. It’s also one of the few songs on the album (“Buddy” is the other) that has a narrative thread running through it. And it is the only one that was written as the total truth, a true story based on true events, whereas all the other songs are partly truth, partly fiction.
If you could use only three words to describe your music, what would they be?
Lyric. Poetry. Feeling. My poems and my songs are rooted in the lyric tradition. That means they’re more about conveying a feeling from a first-person perspective than they are about telling a story, just like the “lyric I” in poetry. The lyric is the vehicle for the emotion. I’m painting a landscape of feeling, that I hope anyone can imaginatively enter into, as if it’s their own world that’s being described.
