Veirs was raised in Colorado, studied geology and Mandarin Chinese at Carleton College, worked as a translator for a geological expedition in China, and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Veirs has said that she didn't seriously listen to music until she was in her 20s; instead, she just heard what was in her environment. She listened to folk / country / classical / pop, around the house & on the radio, during her youth.
Attending Carleton College in rural Minnesota, Veirs latched onto feminist punk rock from the Pacific Northwest, eventually starting an all-female punk band called "Rair Kx!". Veirs studied geology and Mandarin Chinese. After college, she embraced older country and folk music. Her first foray into songwriting started with a geological expedition in China, where she served as translator. She was miserable and immersed herself into writing lyrics as a way of coping.
She put out her own self-titled album Laura Veirs, recorded live and featuring just her and guitar, in 1999. She has since made five highly acclaimed records with producer Tucker Martine. 2003 saw the release of Troubled by the Fire, a full-band effort that found the artist sharing the studio with such luminaries as Bill Frisell and violist Eyvind Kang. She signed to Nonesuch Records the following year with the atmospheric follow-up Carbon Glacier. Year of Meteors followed in August of 2005. She collaborated with The Decemberists on "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)", from their 2006 album The Crane Wife. Her sixth record, Saltbreakers, was released worldwide on Nonesuch Records in April 2007. Her seventh album July Flame was released in January 2010.
In November 2011, Veirs released the album Tumble Bee: Laura Veirs Sings Folk Songs For Children. The album presents mostly traditional songs, and features an array of guest musicians, including Colin Meloy, Jim James, and Bela Fleck. The album won a Parents' Choice Award in 2012.
In September 2012 her first feature film soundtrack was released: Hello I Must Be Going.
Veirs tours frequently in Europe, the US and Australia both solo and with her backing band Saltbreakers, consisting of Karl Blau on bass, guitar, and backing vocals, keyboardist Steve Moore, and Tucker Martine on drums.
Cool Water
Laura Veirs Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I want to fly like a scroll unfolding
Float to a stone ledge
Wait for a moment â??fore spilling
Words to a hedge
And going away
Like a poem closed in a dresser drawer
You want to melt like bullion in a golden flow
And roll on down the hills
Back to the cracks
Back to the deep
Where you can harden and get your fill
Of cool water in surround sound
Cool water, surround sound
Oh my mackinaw feels too tight
My frozen jaw begs for the break of night
Songbirds and sounds of dawning light
Songbirds and sounds of dawning light
The metaphorical language of nature is prominent in Laura Veirs’s song Cool Water. The opening stanza describes the singer's desire to unfold and reveal thoughts like a scroll, and then release them into the world. She imagines herself as a bird, waiting on a stone ledge before speaking into the wind, adding to the dialogue of nature. In complete harmony with the hedge, she mysteriously goes away, disappearing like a poem closed in a dresser drawer, implying there is more to her than meets the eye.
The second stanza captures the essence of the river's flow as an image of the melt of gold, suggesting a merging of precious material and nature with the gleaming shine of the metal mixed by the cool water in surround sound. The image of rolling and hardening creates a compelling narrative of the river's cycle and function. The third stanza departs from the river's story and brings the focus back on the singer, with lyrics describing the feeling of tight clothing and a frozen jaw, which channel the idea of suffocation and silence. The final lines suggest a longing for transformation into a bird, into nature itself, to break free from the constraints of society.
Line by Line Meaning
I want to fly like a scroll unfolding
I want to be free like the scroll that unfolds and spreads out into the open air
Float to a stone ledge
To hover and move effortlessly towards a rock surface
Wait for a moment 'fore spilling
Take a pause before revealing my thoughts
Words to a hedge
To spill out my thoughts to the plants
And going away
In a state of loneliness, desolation from the society
Like a poem closed in a dresser drawer
To be kept hidden and forgotten like a written poem in a drawer
You could say that's what they're for
Perhaps that's the intended use of poems, to be kept hidden from the world
You want to melt like bullion in a golden flow
To dissolve completely in a flow of gold, being one with it
And roll on down the hills
To roll, free and uninhibited, down the hillside
Back to the cracks
To return to the crevices or openings from where it originally came
Back to the deep
To go back into the depths from which it was mined
Where you can harden and get your fill
To become solid again, and to be fully quenched with cool water
Of cool water in surround sound
Enjoying the refreshing waters in its full, surrounding glory
Cool water, surround sound
Repeating the joy of experiencing the flow of refreshing water
Oh my mackinaw feels too tight
The strain of living is becoming too much to bear
My frozen jaw begs for the break of night
Praying for the dawn to arrive fast to bring the day's end
Songbirds and sounds of dawning light
The chirping of the birds welcoming the dawn of a new day
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Written by: LAURA VEIRS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind