This week, New York/London-based musician Juliet Garrett is taking over Left Bank—sharing some of her newest tracks and the inspiration behind them—as a lead up to her debut EP. Today we sat down for a short interview, or a vignette, to discuss her track (one of my favorites) “Carry On.”
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind “Carry On”?
“Carry On” began, like so many of my songs, as a mantra to myself. It actually had entirely different lyrics, except for the refrain – “Carry On”— and I sang it that way for the first few months of its life. Something in that refrain – the simple reminder to just Carry On – was enormously comforting to me at that time.
What was going on?
It had been a rough year for me, personally. And it felt like a rough time for the world, politically. Right after the 2016 election, Brexit, I remember walking through Brooklyn and just feeling so disillusioned, so small, so confused about how to be of service to this world. I figured if this song could help me maybe it could help some other people. So I finished it.
I love that. Do you have a favorite line?
My longtime teacher, Colleen Saidman Yee, was ending class at that time with a gentle reminder to “Come back to Love”. That felt like the emotional core of what I was trying to say. Come back to Love. That line made it into the song in the end. Only I added a “learning to” before it, because I don’t have it figured out just yet myself.
Listen to “Carry On” below and make sure to watch her live performance of this song, and others, during her Left Bank mini-concert tomorrow on our YouTube channel at 7:30 PM EST.
