Spilt Milk was recorded in London with Jimmy Hogarth, the sought-after British producer whose recent credits include Duffy, Corinne Bailey Rae and James Blunt. Powerhouse songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and arranger Eg White – Grammy Awards Record of the Year nominee for Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” – co-wrote most of this material. Singer and pianist Ed Harcourt also co-wrote two, including the climactic “Far From the Country,” an especially poignant and personal conclusion to the disc, about the physical and emotional distances one must bridge to keep love alive
For inspiration, Train turns to Aretha Franklin – “There is not a song that Aretha has sung or will ever sing that doesn’t just melt me” – along with blues/R&B cult figures like former Stax star/Raelette Mable John and Bob Dylan-favorite Karen Dalton. Says Train, “I wanted my album to offer glimpses of my influences, not sound like my influences. Jimmy, Eg and I are of similar backgrounds, we appreciate the same music; we have similar tastes. The arrangements are just what we felt the songs needed, they give the songs flavor but don’t try to steal anybody else’s style. I hope the album is a nod to the music I love, while still being modern.”
Music has been at the center of Train’s world since she was a toddler, when her mother encouraged her to play the violin. Train took to the instrument, but, more importantly, she also discovered an innate aptitude as a singer, with unerring pitch and a preternaturally mature delivery from a very young age. Says Train, “There’s depth to my voice and I think it comes from a lot of different places. But the way I sound today is the way I always sounded -- except in a tinier body.”
As an artist, Train could never simply be described as a product of her times and that has allowed her, on Spilt Milk, to create music that can arguably be called timeless. Her mom, who raised Train alone, fashioned what some might view as a sheltered existence for the young Train, keeping her away from television and pop radio. But what she really did was provide a fertile laboratory for Train to freely grow as a young woman and a singer, apart from the vagaries of trends. Train took music and ballet lessons and listened to classical music and opera, along with jazz and blues. Her violin training definitely came in handy: Train has arranging credits on three of her tracks and overdubbed strings on two of them.
Though born in New York City, Train was raised in Savannah, Georgia, and southern soul and gospel, which she sang in church and school choirs growing up, has had the most profound effect on her work. Almost as significant was the moment when, as a teenager, she unearthed her mom’s tucked-away stash of vinyl albums from the sixties and seventies: Joni Mitchell, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zepplin. Say Train,” I remember hearing Janis Joplin’s records and thinking, what is that all about? We lived in downtown Savannah, in a house kind of like a New York City brownstone. When we had thunderstorms I would go up to the roof and scream at the top of my lungs because I wanted to make my voice raspier. God only knows what that’s done to me!”
By the time Train was 19, she was already singing professionally, albeit locally. A producer based in the south who’d spotted Train arranged to bring her up to New York City to showcase for Blue Note. The label chiefs offered Train a development deal – but her mom had other ideas. She insisted her daughter go to college first. Many a confident and headstrong young artist would rebel and go it alone, accept the deal and take their chances. But Train – reluctantly, she now admits – listened to her mom. She agreed to attend college in Athens, Ga., keeping her hand in music by joining a band and spending far more time rehearsing and gigging than hitting the books. And when she was ready to return to her career full-time, Blue Note was still waiting.
It was time well-spent, Train now realizes: “I know that at 19, I would not have made this record, which is the record I always wanted to make. This is the album that defines who I am. At 19, I don’t know what I would have put out. I believe everything happened for a reason. It took this amount of time for me to get here and to make this record. I always knew it would happen. “
Train made several trips to London over the course of two years, to write with Hogarth and White, but the actual recording moved quickly. In fact, Train was such a natural that some of the vocal performances they chose came straight from the song demos they’d originally done. Right before they were about to embark on their final sessions, though, a disastrous computer glitch during file back-up resulted in the loss of much of what they’d already completed. As Train recalls, “It was the perfect electronic storm.” Undaunted, she and her cohorts went back in and re-cut the vanished material with even more passion and determination, the setback turning out to be far more inspiration than challenge. Looking back, Train says, “I don’t think anything was lost. I don’t think there was this one magic moment that we could never recapture. I love what it is today.” And the experience provided her with an album title. “Don’t cry over spilt milk.”
Train’s confidence and faith in what she has created is part of what makes Spilt Milk so thrilling: “There’s just this magic thing that happens sometimes and you think, I want to sing this song for the rest of my life – I want to live in it, I want to bury myself in it, I want to wriggle around in it.. Every time I finished one, it was like, I can’t believe that, at this point in my life I finally have a song I would fight for, that I believe in 100% percent. And now I have all these songs together on an entire album that I feel this way about. For me, that’s my college degree.”
Pins & Needles
Kristina Train Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
pins and needles is all
I can't feel
I can't feel anymore
and I have become just a shadow
a shadow with no place to fall
in the morning
in the evening
I'll be sleeping all alone
the silence you left is like thunder
the space in the bed is like stone
pins and needles
that is all
I can't feel your love no more
pins and needles
pins and needles
when the feeling goes numb
and the dreaming
make believing is all done
I know I'll be biting the bullet
cause you got your hand on the gun
pins and needles
that is all
I can't feel your love no more
I got nowhere
I don't know where to go
anymore
In Kristina Train's song "Pins & Needles," the lyrics revolve around the concept of feeling numb and helpless after a breakup. The first verse captures the imagery of pins and needles, a feeling associated with numbness and lack of sensation, and compares it to the singer's emotional state. The singer admits to being a mere shadow, having lost all sense of direction and purpose. They have nowhere to fall, emphasizing their emotional instability and vulnerability.
In the second verse, the singer talks about their daily routine, where they spend every morning and evening alone, emphasizing their loneliness and isolation. The silence left behind after the breakup is like thunder, highlighting the magnitude of the loss they've experienced. The singer also mentions the space in the bed being like stone, emphasizing the physical toll the breakup has taken.
In the chorus, the singer repeats the phrase pins and needles, which now refers to their inability to feel their ex-partner's love anymore. The repetition of this phrase conveys the idea that the pain and numbness of the breakup is a constant presence in their life. Towards the end of the song, the singer acknowledges that they will have to bite the bullet and move on, although they don't know where to go anymore.
Line by Line Meaning
pins and needles
The singer is feeling anxious and nervous.
pins and needles is all
The overwhelming feeling of anxiety is all that the singer is experiencing.
I can't feel
The singer is emotionally numb.
I can't feel anymore
The artist has lost the ability to feel any emotion at all.
and I have become just a shadow
The artist feels invisible and unimportant.
a shadow with no place to fall
The singer feels like there is nowhere to turn for comfort or support.
in the morning
The start of the day.
every morning on my own
The artist is facing each day alone.
in the evening
The end of the day.
I'll be sleeping all alone
The artist spends their nights alone.
the silence you left is like thunder
The absence of the person the singer loved is deafeningly loud.
the space in the bed is like stone
The empty bed feels hard and unyielding, like a piece of stone.
that is all
The anxiety and numbness is all that the singer can experience.
I can't feel your love no more
The singer has lost the ability to feel loved or to love someone else.
when the feeling goes numb
When emotions shut down completely.
and the dreaming
Hoping and wishing for something better.
make believing is all done
The artist has stopped wishing and hoping for things to get better.
I know I'll be biting the bullet
The singer knows that they will have to face the pain and discomfort head-on.
cause you got your hand on the gun
The person the singer loved has the power to hurt them emotionally.
I got nowhere
The artist has no place to go for comfort or support.
I don't know where to go
The artist is lost and doesn't know which way to turn.
anymore
The artist is completely lost and doesn't know what to do next.
Contributed by Ian J. Suggest a correction in the comments below.