While songs tell a story, the story behind their creation can often be twice as intriguing.

Being a songwriter myself, people often ask me about this process. They expect something uniform, almost like a set of instructions so they can learn and do it themselves. As far as doing it themselves, I say songwriting does not come to everyone easily. There has to be something within you that aches for a story to be told to music.

And to the idea of uniformity, I say “I wish”. Maybe songwriting would be easier and less taxing if it was the same every time. Every song is different. How long does it take? Who knows.

“Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin took a long year to compose while “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga took only 10 minutes in a hungover haze. Where do you write them? Wherever you can. Songs are written in bedrooms, on kitchen floors, in bathrooms, in showers, on planes, and sometimes on farms in the middle of nowhere Spain.

The latter is where “Crow Song” by Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover was written and recorded. Now that’s a good process story.

Haley Heynderickx, an indie folk singer/songwriter from Portland, Oregon, has been releasing music since 2015. Heynderickx describes her style as very reminiscent of folk music from the 60s and 70s, incorporated with her love of jazz and peculiar, out of the box acoustic guitar styles. Her lyrics tend to lean towards soulful introspection, which is common for most songwriters. Max García Conover, a one-man indie folk band from Portland, Maine, has been writing songs for a few years. In 2015, he had an idea to write one song per week while traveling in a motorhome with just a guitar, a notebook, his wife, and his dog. This idea got him more than sixty songs and a full length album called Motorhome. Clearly he is no stranger to writing in strange settings.

When Son Canciones, Conover’s record label, dropped Heynderickx and Conover off on a dry farmland in Spain filled with dogs and horses, instruments in hand, they had 7 days to become acquainted and write/record an EP together. According to Traxsource, they spent five days writing and the last two were spent in a dusty attic studio. Most of the songs were recorded in one take and they chose to use no special effects. The final EP they created was titled Among Horses III, and it’s on this EP that the raw, whimsical “Crow Song” makes an appearance. “Crow Song” is a compilation of small, seemingly insignificant moments of life that sometimes bring joy, sometimes bring sorrow – but it’s the union of both that creates a full, real life.

In the beginning of the song, there’s a very faint sound of birds tweeting, which immediately creates nature imagery for the listener. You feel like you’re on the farm in Spain with them, basking in the summer air. Whether the birds have been added in editing or they just happened to be caught on the microphone from the outside of the mangey attic, it gives the song a sweet and sunny glow.

The whole song is a simple and consistent melody played on an acoustic guitar while Max lets his vocals take prominence. Haley joins in for the choruses and provides a lovely little harmony. On the last chorus, a whole group of voices join in to sing, sounding like a rowdy (possibly drunk) group participating in a round of karaoke. The chorus of voices makes the lyrics more powerful and creates a “we’re all in this together” vibe (and no, I’m not referencing High School Musical). If listening to the last refrain doesn’t make you want to join in singing yourself, you may need to turn your volume up.

I saw the scatter light stream down to the century trees,

blood fern and juniper, sweet eyed shatter cane weeds.

And I saw the clouds from the cabin, slate rock and teeming with storm.

Carry on bird, caught in the Earth,

and killed by collision with door –

feathers all over the floor.

The beginning of this song reads almost like the poetry of Robert Frost, not only rich in language but utterly focused on nature. I believe Conover and Heynderickx used the first handful of lines to create overpowering imagery. I see reds and greens, an Indian summer, a rustic home by the mountains, a rolling sky, dark with impending doom. I imagine it to be the very farm they wrote at. Yes, the place is magical… until a bird flies into the door and dies. In my interpretation, the bird was used as a contrast. The writers were trying to show how even horrible things happen in a world this positively picturesque. Nothing is perfect, but we must go on.

Buckshot rang out in the distance, over and over again.

River, the moon shiver, I saw my sister jump in.

And I saw my brother in Dallas, quietly drunk every day –

Gentle and kind, and lost in his mind,

and surprised when his wife went away.

The first half of this verse creates a very wild setting, with gunshots ringing out in the distance while they’re in the river. You imagine they’re somewhere deep in the forest or in nature where hunters roam and outsiders never come. The speaker watches his sister dive in and it plays out like an old Super8 film capturing an idyllic summer, a lively moment between siblings. Then they contrast this once again when the speaker sees his other sibling, who is a drunk, losing his mind over the failure of a marriage. Life isn’t easy; there are good and bad moments. We all tackle our own hardships.

I wake up staggered and lonely, bird song and particle air,

her letter in my jacket, I carried myself down the stairs.

Lena, she cheated me easy – she found me wherever I was.

Blood fern and juniper, sweet eyed shatter cane,

that never felt like enough.

Finally the speaker reflects this message upon themselves. They are lonely, still mourning and remembering a past relationship that ended in betrayal and a broken heart. Then the repetition of blood fern, juniper, and shatter cane weeds. Though the speaker found this beautiful place to live out his days after, it doesn’t make him forget any quicker. We imagine he hoped it would.

I’ll be home where I go.

I’ll be home wherever I go.

I’ll be home where I go someday.

The chorus is a beacon of hope, away from the stories told in the verses. While we experience ups and downs, we make and find our homes wherever we please, wherever or with whoever makes up happiest. Even if you haven’t found your home yet, you will someday. Everything will be okay.

“Crow Song” plays like a musical escape, and if all it takes to write music like this is being dropped off on a farm in Spain, maybe other songwriters should take a cue and book a flight.

As long as songs like this exist, I’ll be home.