At my shows, I talk a lot about my family because they are a big part of my musical process. When I was young, my mom used to come home from gigs wearing zebra leggings and fishnet stockings on her arms, with her hair sprayed high and giant earrings. She looked so cool. I wanted to go to her gigs so badly. When my father finally took me I was awestruck. Her band, FoxxFire, even had choreography!
My mom wrote beautiful melodies that were fashioned into 80s pop songs, but eventually her heart led her to social work and music took on a different role in her life. But she still would play these beautiful melodies on the piano. For my birthday one year, I asked her for a song. During that process, we wrote “I Won’t Ask” together.
When we wrote it, I cried. When I sang it, I cried. The song moved me in a way that I had never before been moved. A friend put me in the studio with T-Bone Burnett to record the song and it was my first time in the studio where my instructions were to “not watch the clock” and not have an agenda, to just let the recording be what it would be. This was a tall order for someone who is extremely goal-oriented and is always trying to stretch recording money to the last cent. To put it frankly, up until this moment, recording had been a very stressful process in trying to match my vision with my budget. But to relax in the studio….wow! There were wine and music and experimentation. T-Bone taught me to sing quietly, to trust that I was communicating without having to “tell” the audience. It was so freeing! And the recording turned out to be one of my favorites: it is imperfect and human, and I love that. My friends, Dermot Mulroney, Keiran Mulroney and James Fearnley played cello, violin and accordion so sensitively. There was no metronome, no click track, and in fact, the piano is even a little out of tune.
This served as the foundation for the recording I am releasing now. I went to my friend, Paul Tavenner’s studio to record on his beautiful grand piano. Dave Eggar, who did the strings on Coldplay’s Viva la Vida, arranged and played the cello to the piano/vocal that I recorded with Craig “The Regulator” Frank. Simple. Human.
I WON’T ASK Lyrics (Kat Parsons & Julie Parsons)
I will carry you in this heavy heart of mine
And I’ll wait until you are free
I will bury your secret deep inside
And I’ll hold onto this sweet dream
I won’t ask you now
What I already know
You love me, but you just can’t let it show
So I will do what’s right
I will let you go
And I will be the only one to know
I will look for you in every hand I hold
In every kiss, as it gently unfolds
Will the others know when I give them all I can
That you are the only one who touches my soul
I won’t ask you now
What I already know
You love me, but you just can’t let it show
So I will do what’s right
I will let you go
And I will be the only one to know
Kat,
I really liked reading this. Very interesting explanation of how the music process unfolds. I know how it is in the studio, lawdy, they are expensive things. It is wonderful what you can do with computers these days, but the click tracks and the rest of it don’t quite do what a real piano and instruments do.
T.Bone.Burnett taught you some good stuff, and he must have seen that you were ready to hear that wisdom, and that’s a huge compliment to you, methinks.
Love your music, hope you are wonderfully successful and hope to see you perform one day.
brendan
Hi Brendan! Thanks for your lovely comment! Yes, there are so many ways to be in the studio and so many ways to approach recording…it’s really interesting how people experiment and come up with all sorts of really cool, unexpected sounds. I DO love playing the grand piano though! 🙂
Not a songwriter here, pls excuse me, but if the guy in fact does let it show, does that mean you let him stay?
Hi Late Sleeper! Good question! I suppose each person lives and chooses differently….I wrote this song about a love that cannot be because one of the people is already taken….so while they love one another, it can never be without destroying other relationships, so she will let him go and let the love go and they will be the only ones to know that it even existed.
It wasn’t until I REALLY listened to the lyrics that this song hit me- it describes my situation exactly! Why does love have to be so sad, as Eric Clapton said? : (