Melanie Grace

Tag: acoustic folk singer songwriter

  • Hay Ride: The Song About Learning to Be Slow

    Hay Ride: The Song About Learning to Be Slow

    I am not naturally a slow person. I am a list-maker, a planner, a let’s-go-while-we’re-going kind of person who finds stillness difficult even when she knows better. But there are certain fall experiences that are so inherently, stubbornly slow that even I cannot rush them. The hay ride is one of them. You cannot hurry a tractor through an orchard. You cannot check your phone and also fully experience the particular blue of an October sky above the apple trees. The hay ride will not let you be anywhere other than exactly where you are.

    That involuntary slowing down is what “Hay Ride” is about.

    This is Track 11 on Give Me Fall, my new album releasing August 31st, and it is the first song in the back half of the record where the energy truly settles. The album front is full of joy and motion and celebration. The back half is where we learn to be still. “Hay Ride” is the turning point, the moment where the wagon pulls out through the orchard rows and the world gets quiet and something important has a chance to be felt.

    The first verse captures the physical specificity of that moment perfectly, I hope. Straw bales on both sides and nowhere else to be. The tractor pulling you out through the rows of the orchard. And then the person beside you puts their arm around you like it was easy. Like it was always going to be this. Like they knew. That last line does something to me every time I sing it. Like they knew. The ease of someone who has found their place beside you. The complete natural comfort of it.

    The pre-chorus is where the song finds its thesis. I don’t need the destination. I just need the slow of it. The horses and the harvest air and you next to me in the middle of it. This is it. This is everything. I wrote those lines and then sat with them for a long time because I think they are true of so much more than a hay ride. I do not need the destination. I just need to be paying attention to where I already am.

    The chorus builds on that thesis with a contrast that I love. The whole wide world can keep on moving fast as it wants to go. But right here on this wagon with you, I am learning to be slow. That phrase, learning to be slow, is a confession. It is not something that comes naturally to me. It is something I am working on, something fall helps me practice every year. The hay ride is a curriculum.

    The third verse has the moment that wrecked me when I wrote it. We came back to the barn when the sun was nearly done. Somebody had cider waiting and the kids had had enough. You helped me down and held my hand a second longer than you had to. And I loved you for it so much. So much. You don’t even know. That extra second of holding on. That moment of not rushing. That is a whole language of love in a gesture that takes less than two seconds.

    The bridge strips everything down to its simplest form. Just this. Just now. Just you and me and straw and sky. Just your hand in mine. Just slow. The word just doing more work than almost any other word in the album.

    I wrote this album collaborating with Claude AI and using Suno AI for music production which sampled my own voice. This song in particular felt like it wrote itself because the memory it came from is so clear and so complete.

    Tell me in the comments: have you ever been on a hay ride? What is your equivalent of the hay ride, the thing in your life that makes you slow down without asking permission? I want to know.

    Give Me Fall releases August 31st. Please follow me on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora so this album finds you the day it drops. Come find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and join my email list here.

    I am learning to be slow. Right here on this wagon with you. Just slow.

    Warmly, Melanie Grace

  • Flannel Season: The Song About Deciding to Be Cozy

    Flannel Season: The Song About Deciding to Be Cozy

    There is a morning every fall where I pull a flannel off the hanger and put it on and something inside me goes, yes. This. We have arrived. Not just at the season but at a whole state of being. Cozy. Unhurried. Done pretending the weather is anything other than what it is. We are in flannel season now and we have made our decision and we are at peace.

    That morning is this song.

    “Flannel Season” is Track 10 on Give Me Fall, releasing August 31st, and it is probably the coziest three and a half minutes I have ever committed to an album. It is also secretly one of the most honest songs about what I love in a relationship, tucked inside what looks on the surface like a song about a shirt.

    The first verse opens on a Tuesday morning, which is important because the flannel decision never happens on a weekend when you have nowhere to be. It happens on a Tuesday when you could theoretically still be a person who wears a normal shirt. But the temperature has finally made its decision and you are done going without. That line, I was done pretending it was still enough to go without, is about the flannel but it is also about something bigger. About the moment you stop performing summer and let yourself fully arrive into fall.

    The second verse is my favorite because it introduces the other person. You came downstairs in yours before I even asked. The red one with the elbow patches worn to thin. And something about seeing you in flannel in the kitchen made me feel like everything was right again. That image, seeing someone you love in their worn-in flannel first thing in the morning in your kitchen, is one of the most intimate and ordinary things in the world and I think it deserves a song.

    The pre-chorus makes what I think is a genuinely important declaration. There’s a declaration in the putting on. We are cozy now, we have decided. There is nothing left to prove to anyone. We are warm and we are here. That phrase, nothing left to prove, is doing a lot of work. Flannel season is permission to stop performing. Stop being impressive. Stop being anywhere other than exactly where you are.

    The chorus is pure joy. Break out the good mugs and the soft socks too. Pull me in, it’s getting cold outside. We don’t need to go anywhere tonight. Close the door and let October do its thing. Flannel season with you is everything. I want that chorus sung loudly in a kitchen while something is cooking on the stove and someone is pouring something warm.

    The bridge is where I get a little more personal and a little more true. Some people chase the summer all year long. Some people need the sun to feel alive. But give me grey skies and a pot of something warm and the person that I love pressed up against my side. This is our season. This is our pace. This is the version of us that I love the most. The unhurried, unambitious, nowhere-to-be version. Flannel and a fire and you close. That phrase, the unhurried, unambitious, nowhere-to-be version, is the version of myself and my relationships that I am always chasing and only seem to fully find in fall.

    This is a faith thing for me too. There is something deeply restful about a season that gives you permission to slow down, to settle, to be still. Flannel season feels like Sabbath feels. Like the world agreeing to exhale.

    I wrote this album collaborating with Claude AI and using Suno AI for music production. Every word of this song came from a real feeling on a real Tuesday morning, and I hope it makes you want to go find your favorite flannel immediately.

    Tell me in the comments: what is your flannel? Do you have a specific one? A color, a pattern, an old one that should probably be retired but absolutely will not be? Tell me about it. I am very serious.

    Give Me Fall is out August 31st. Please follow me on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora so you hear this album the moment it arrives. Come hang with me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube and join my email list here.

    Flannel season with you is everything. The unhurried, unambitious, nowhere-to-be version. That is the goal.

    Warmly, Melanie Grace

  • October Ready: The Song About Bringing the Season Inside

    October Ready: The Song About Bringing the Season Inside

    There is a specific kind of Saturday that happens every fall in my house. It starts with me pulling bins down from the attic. Orange and black ones, the ones stacked behind the Christmas stuff, the ones that have been waiting patiently since last November. And the moment those bins hit the floor something shifts in the whole house. The kids come running. Someone starts asking about costumes before we have even opened the first lid. And we are off.

    That Saturday is “October Ready.”

    Track 9 on Give Me Fall, releasing August 31st, is the most festive song on the album and honestly one of the most fun things I have ever recorded. It is a song about the particular joy of decorating for fall and Halloween, the craft show hauls and the pumpkins appearing on every surface and the candy bowl materializing by the front door and the wreath that someone bought that we absolutely did not need but that looks genuinely perfect and I will admit it now publicly.

    The song gets to the chorus fast because that is the energy of decoration day. There is no slow build. The moment the bins come down you are fully committed and the whole house knows it. October ready, got the porch all dressed up right. October ready, there are pumpkins left and right. Candy in the bowl by the door, costumes on the floor, craft show haul we didn’t plan but we adore.

    The craft show line deserves its own paragraph. If you have ever gone to a fall craft show telling yourself you are just going to look and then come home with a handmade wreath, a set of personalized pumpkin signs, a candle that smells like a cinnamon-scented dream, and a wooden scarecrow for the porch swing, this song is for you. I am you. We are the same person. The craft show haul is a love language and I will not apologize for it.

    The second verse introduces the costume conversation, which in my house begins approximately one to two months before Halloween and goes through approximately seven hundred revisions before landing on something that causes a fight and then resolves into something everyone loves. The song captures that chaos with genuine affection because the chaos is actually part of the joy. Somebody wants something that’s gonna cause a fight. That is just true. And beautiful. And very, very fall.

    The bridge is where the song finds its deeper truth, which is that every decoration in those bins has a story. Every fake cobweb and every plastic bat was chosen for a reason, was bought at a particular place, was hung up by particular hands in a particular year. The bins themselves are a kind of family archive. And doing all of this with someone beside you, making your house look like October together, is really what the song is trying to say when it says I love fall.

    I wrote this album collaborating with Claude AI and using Suno AI for music production, which sampled my own voice. October Ready was one of the fastest songs to write because the joy of that decoration Saturday practically wrote itself.

    Tell me in the comments: are you an early decorator or do you wait until it feels officially fall enough? And what is the one fall decoration you bring out every single year that makes your house feel like home? I want to know.

    Give Me Fall is out August 31st and I am so excited for you to hear the whole thing. Please follow me on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora so this album lands in your ears the moment it releases. Come hang with me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and join my email list here where I share everything first.

    October ready. The scarecrow is on the porch swing. The lights are on the door. With you.

    Warmly, Melanie Grace

  • Jump: The Song That Surprised Me Most

    Jump: The Song That Surprised Me Most

    This song started as the silliest idea I had for this album and ended up being the one that makes me cry the most. I need you to know that going in.

    “Jump” is Track 8 on Give Me Fall, my new album released August 31st, and the premise is exactly what it sounds like. Someone raked the leaves into a big pile. Someone had the very good idea to back up fifteen paces, get a running start, and land right in the middle of it without fear. And then the adults did it too. Multiple times. Until the pile was nothing but a scattered mess of spent October gold.

    That is the whole story. That is the song.

    Except it is not, because somewhere between the first chorus and the bridge this simple little leaf-pile song became one of the most emotionally true things I have ever written about what it means to stay young in your spirit, to stay loose and playful and unserious in a world that is always asking you to be more careful, more measured, more grown.

    The first two verses set up the scene with pure delight. The kids raking the pile, the running start, the landing. Then you look at the person beside you and you both already know. You drop the rakes. You count down from three. You hit that pile like nothing you have heard before and there are leaves absolutely everywhere. The kids think you have completely lost your minds. Which, as the song points out, is honestly the biggest compliment.

    The pre-chorus is where the shift starts. And I thought about how long it’s been since I did something just because it’s fun. No reason and no outcome and no plan. Just you and me and running and the sun. That line about no reason and no outcome is the one that gets me. Because somewhere along the way most of us learned to justify everything. We learned to have a purpose and a plan and a measurable result. And we forgot how to just run at a pile of leaves because it looked like the best possible thing to do with the next thirty seconds of our lives.

    The chorus is a pure, joyful, singalong invitation. Jump like nobody’s watching. Jump like we are free. Jump like we were seven. Jump like we’re still young. Jump like fall is magic and the best is yet to come. I wrote that chorus in one sitting and I have not changed a single word because sometimes a chorus is just right and you leave it alone.

    The bridge is where I did not expect to end up. Somewhere along the way we learned to be so careful. Somewhere we got serious and small. But every year October gives us back permission to be the kind of people who just jump and let it fall. I want to stay this loose with you forever. I want to be the one who makes you run. I want us to be old and still be jumping. Still laughing, still ridiculous, still us. That phrase, still us, is the heart of the whole song. Because the best love stories are the ones where you still make each other laugh until you are both covered in October leaves in the middle of your own front yard.

    This is what faith and love and fall all have in common for me. They all give permission. Permission to let go, to be silly, to trust that the pile will catch you, to stop being so careful and just run.

    I wrote this album collaborating with Claude AI and using Suno AI for music production, which sampled my own voice. This song is one hundred percent real memory and real feeling, and I hope it makes you want to go find a leaf pile immediately.

    Tell me in the comments: when is the last time you did something just because it was fun? When is the last time you jumped? I am genuinely asking because I think we could all use a little more of that.

    Give Me Fall released August 31st. Follow me on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora so you never miss a new release. Come find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, and join my email list here.

    Still laughing. Still ridiculous. Still us. Jump with me.

    Warmly, Melanie Grace

  • Sunday Kind of Fall — The Song About the Life I Dream About

    Sunday Kind of Fall — The Song About the Life I Dream About

    I am going to tell you something a little vulnerable. I am not a football family. We do not have team jerseys or a fantasy league or strong opinions about the spread. I could not tell you what a first down is without looking it up. Football Sundays in the classic sense are not really part of my world.

    And yet.

    There is a version of a fall Sunday that lives in my imagination so vividly that I wrote a whole song about it. A house that smells like something has been in the slow cooker since morning. A couch full of people wearing somebody’s team. A coffee table buried under snack food. Nobody checking the time. Nobody leaving. The dog in a jersey someone bought as a joke that ended up being the best thing in the house. A halftime dance party that nobody planned. The whole neighborhood just wandering in because the door is open and the chili is ready and that is all the invitation anyone needs.

    I want that. I want all of that.

    “Sunday Kind of Fall” is Track 7 on Give Me Fall, my new album releasing August 31st, and it is the most aspirational song I have ever written. Every lyric is written in the voice of longing, in the “I want” energy of someone describing the exact life they are reaching toward. I want a quarterback I can pretend to understand. I want you explaining the plays like I’m going to remember. I want the whole neighborhood just wandering in.

    The joy of writing this song was in being completely honest about the aspiration. I am not describing something I have. I am describing something I dream about. And I think that honesty is what makes the song connect, because I suspect I am not the only one who has a vivid internal picture of what their ideal fall Sunday looks like even if their actual fall Sundays look a little different.

    The bridge is where the song reveals its real heart. Maybe we’re not really football people. Maybe we just like the excuse to not go anywhere. To let the day be slow and loud and easy. To let the people that we love just fill the air. That is the real confession of the song. It was never about football. Football is just the permission structure. The real thing is the slow Sunday and the people and the open door and the person next to you on the couch. Call it football, call it Sunday. Call it whatever gets everybody through the door.

    The final chorus makes one small but significant change. Instead of “I want to be the family that makes the whole block wish they’d come on down,” it becomes “we might not be the family but we made it ours and honey that’s enough right now.” That shift from wanting to having, from aspiring to claiming, is the emotional journey of the whole song. We made it ours. That is enough. More than enough.

    I wrote this album with Claude AI as my songwriting collaborator and Suno AI for music production, which sampled my own voice. This song in particular was so fun to write because it gave me permission to be completely honest about dreaming out loud.

    Tell me in the comments: are you a football family? And if you are, can you please describe what your perfect fall Sunday looks like? I need all the details for research purposes.

    Give Me Fall releases August 31st and I am counting down every single day. Please follow me on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, and Pandora so this album shows up for you the moment it releases. Come find me on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube where I will be sharing behind the scenes all the way to release day, and join my email list here.

    Sunday kind of fall. All day. Nowhere to be. With you.

    Warmly, Melanie Grace