turns to inspiration. This is the territory of Sophie B. Hawkins’ remarkable sixth album, which is at once the most directly personal, musically transporting and defiantly raw work yet from the Grammy nominated
singer/songwriter.
Since her instantaneous 1992 breakthrough with the indelible hit single “Damn I Wish I Was Your
Lover” and her acclaimed debut album Tongues and Tails, Hawkins has proved an enduring artist with a fierce commitment to constantly evolving, while remaining steadfastly true to her own authentic history and experience. This comes to the fore as she breaks open her heart without reservation on The Crossing, her longawaited first album of new songs in several years. It is a searing, lush and startlingly naked chronicle of the most intense period of Hawkins’ life, in which she has come to terms with her father’s death, openly surrendered to the haunting specter of her past, discovered the exhilaration of motherhood and arrived at a profound reckoning of acceptance. All of this emerges in songwriting and vocals that mix the brashly playful and the unabashedly poignant in fresh ways for Hawkins.
“I was really reaching for somewhere new as I wrote these songs,” she explains. “It all started with
getting a letter from my sister that my father was dying – and, in a way, that opened up not only struggle and emotion but all these opportunities for healing. I had to acknowledge that I’d never be able to heal the abyss created by my parents’ alcoholism. I had to say this is how it was, this is how it is with me now and surrender to the grace of that. These feelings have always been there in my writing but it’s like I always kind of danced around them in my songs and now I was ready to go head-on into them. The songs began to express a kind of eternal dream I’ve had, that I think we all have, for a moment of peace and clarity, for the ability to get beyond our personal struggles and move out into the larger world -- knowing exactly where you stand in it.”
The eleven songs on her upcoming album, The Crossing spilled out of Sophie B. Hawkins in a way she had never experienced before in a lifetime of diverse and critically admired songwriting – yet were so closely entwined with her very being, she confesses they felt at first like secrets that needed to be kept. “I didn’t play these songs to anybody, not a soul, for a long time,” she acknowledges. “But as I wrote, I developed deeper and deeper roots of strength. I felt it was time to do something that might scare me. And what I love about these songs is that they are very, very emotional but they aren’t filled with baggage. There’s something very unconscious about them, a letting go, and they seem to bring people a lot of joy.”
Hoping to sustain the stripped-bare honesty of how the songs were written, Hawkins created the album
in a sonically hand-made way – recording entirely in her home studio and keeping the sparse, spontaneous immediacy of a demo-like sound. She engineered the album herself. “The album is entirely me with just drums, bass, guitar and flugel. I didn’t hire a band – I just would meet one musician at a time and have them come to the house to record and it was a very spacious and organic process. I became an engineer really by instinct. I kept things very simple and told the musicians to just have fun. It felt like it unfolded all on its own -- I really wanted to retain the feel of these songs that were written completely in the moment and I think we did. I felt lucky just to be there watching this be created.”
The tracks on The Crossing have that rare quality of feeling like an expedition underneath a human
skin, revealing a woman who has dragged wisdom and strength from a lion’s den of complicated relationships and life experiences. The journey ranges from the feisty “Bet Ya Got A Cure” which Hawkins calls “a personal, guttural response to everything I’ve seen and a reminder that we’re all too easily lulled by what’s easy instead of the parts of life that require you to be really brave”; to the powerful testament “Heart and Soul of a Woman,” an ode to feminine strength (in all forms) which Hawkins notes was inspired in part by her experiences working on Hilary Clinton’s historic Presidential campaign; to the fluid, crescendoing “Life Is a River,” which Hawkins says is about the idea “that you don’t really know who you are until you’re challenged.”
Some of the most personally revealing tracks include “Missing,” an impassioned reckoning with the dark
truths of her past that Hawkins says is about that “really simple dream of coming to the purest place of common ground with someone no matter what went on before. It also has this great feeling for me of New York in the springtime.” She makes a bold, no-holds barred declaration of independence in “I Don’t Need You,” then turns reflective in “Red Bird,” which was written after a friend was hit by a car and Hawkins muses “is about those moments when you have to move on, even though you don’t necessarily want to leave where you are, you can’t help but go forward.” Then there is “Dream Street & Chance,” a jazzy, modern torch song about possibility and acceptance. “There’s a lot of personal symbolism in that song,” notes Hawkins. “When I talk about the weatherman’s castle it goes back to me wanting to be a weatherman as a child, which my father used to tease me about. The song goes back to the idea of a sacred childhood, which is a part of being human no matter what your experience with childhood is, and which I think is the source of all creativity.”
Evocative themes weave throughout the album from innocence and the purity of love in “A Child” (which
morphs into Hawkins’ sultry take on “Summertime And The Living Is Easy”) to the human need for the natural world in “The Land, The Sea and The Sky” to the brassy rebelliousness of youth in the sexy, sunny, straightahead pop song “Georgia.” Hawkins also collaborated with Academy Award®-winning actress Mary Steenburgen on the heart-felt, Joplinesque folk ballad “Gone Baby.” “I met Mary at a Clinton rally and in the middle of everything she mentioned that she wrote songs,” Hawkins recalls. “Later, she sang one of her songs to me over the phone and she was like a lone wolf in the desert. I felt that the song was all there, it just needed to be developed. It turned out to be a great partnership and I got so much out of working with her.”
In the end, the album became to Hawkins a kind of line in the sand: “These songs were written right on
that border between transcending the person I used to be and opening up to something new, to realizing I’ve come to a place where I can bring more love, more passion and more energy to my life and creation. It’s an acceptance of where I’ve been and a declaration of where I’m standing I am right now.”
In the middle of writing the songs for her new album, Hawkins received an unusual chance to take an
artistic left turn. Hawkins was asked by her longtime manager and acclaimed filmmaker, Gigi Gaston, to join her in pitching a musical Gigi had been working on with Kristin Chenoweth, the Tony & Emmy award-winning singer and actress (Glee, Pushing Daisies, Wicked), in which Chenoweth would star. The musical had deep roots, having been started by Gaston’s mother, Theodora Lynch, in 1950, and now the three women were inspired to bring an extraordinary story back to life. A fan of Hawkins’ music, Chenoweth asked Sophie to write the new music & lyrics for a book by Gaston and Tony-award winning Broadway legend Thomas Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray), who joined the project as co-writer soon after.
“When Gigi, my manager first approached me about writing a Broadway musical, I thought ‘there’s no
way,’“ Sophie laughs. “It was completely outside anything I’d ever done, but at the same time, I’ve always loved musicals and some of my favorite songwriters and singers come from the theatre world, which has had a huge influence on me. I started to think that just maybe I had it in me.”
After that fateful first meeting between Gaston, Chenoweth and Hawkins, the journey began.
Tentatively at first, Hawkins began writing with Gaston, then further collaborating with Meehan. It was a fresh and creative adventure that became a perfectly timed yin-yang contrast to Hawkins’ work on the album.
“It has been a grand experiment and a lot of hard work but it was also an amazing opportunity to
explore a completely different creative process,” Hawkins explains. “Here I was writing these intensely
emotional songs for the album, so working on the musical became a welcome release from that. It wasn’t about me, it was about fictional characters and the arc of telling a dramatic story -- and I could immerse myself in that in a whole different way. It’s a more intellectual way of writing, but it also became more unconscious and poetic as it went along. It was also great for me because I have rarely collaborated lyrically with anyone and it was very interesting to work with other people’s ideas and themes. I was moving back and forth between these songs for the album that were so personal on the one hand, and then on the other, working in a very collaborative atmosphere on something structured and theatrical. It was a great contrast that I think allowed me to explore more of the potential of who I am.”
The Crossing is in many ways the culmination of Sophie B. Hawkins’ life-long apprenticeship in
creative transcendence. Hawkins grew up in a colorful but troubled New York family and found an outlet for her yearning and imagination in music at 14 years old, Drawn to the intensity and spell of rhythm, she left home then and moved in with her African Drum teacher Godson, and African master drummer Babutune Olatunji, to learn, eat and breathe music. She entered the rarified realm of female percussionists, playing with a number of artists including Bryan Ferry, until she literally found the strength of her own voice. In 1992, she cut her first demo as a singer, and it would go on to become the international hit single, “Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover,” showcasing the tough-yet-tender, movingly transparent vocals that would become her trademark.
Her first album, Tongues and Tails, full of primal, fiery pop, was an immediate success, earning her a
Grammy nomination for “Best New Artist.” Hawkins followed that with Whaler, which featured the smash ballad, “As I Lay Me Down,” which remains the longest-running hit single in the Billboard charts in American history. The album, as equally gutsy as her first yet an atmospheric departure sealed her rising reputation for musical breadth and lyrical depth.
Hawkins’ third album, Timbre, in which she broke out into a more earthy, stripped-back sound that
aimed at the core of her personal expression, was released in 1999. In a move toward artistic independence, Hawkins worked out an arrangement that would allow her to leave her label while retaining the masters to Timbre. She re-released the album on her newly born label Trumpet Swan Productions – then hit the road, on her own this time, just Sophie and her band touring the country in a station wagon.
2004’s Wilderness saw Hawkins diving into a jazzier style for what would become her most musically
layered and emotionally complex album yet, and the first recorded entirely in her Los Angeles home studio. Playfully exploring a collage of musical influences and her own multi-instrumental talents, Hawkins played guitar, cello, keyboard, drums and a variety of exotic percussion on a recording Rolling Stone singled out for its “dreamy charm.”
The roiling energy and close intimacy of Hawkins’ live shows was captured in 2006’s Bad Kitty Board
Mix, a two-disc set recorded in Seattle. Spotlighting her improvisational instincts, Hawkins says she wanted this live album to be something different, “not just the songs you already know, but what they become in front of you, totally raw, exposed and new every night.”
In 2008, Hawkins’ life took one of its most dramatic and enlarging turns yet, as she became the proud
mother of a son, Dashiell, now only 14 months old. “Becoming a mother gave me an amazing new perspective on being an artist,” she muses. “There’s an immense amount of truth and honesty and presence that comes out in our relationship. It’s a constant reminder that the most beautiful thing you can ever do for another person is to fully, passionately and fearlessly express yourself and what you believe in.”
Don't Stop Swaying
Sophie B. Hawkins Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
All I wanted was to start with you
Was the hardest thing I ever had to do
Till I made you care
Yo brother
You sure heard me
Banging on the big drums for your love
Talked to me like your best friend
When the time was right you were so good
Asked me what I like
And I said
Don't stop swaying baby
You soothe my soul and I stop searching
When I get lost in the rhythm
Everything stops hurting
Don't stop swaying baby
Take it slow
And I keep yearning
Again I fall
Lighter than the morning dew
Fresh
'Cause I always never knew
What I'm stumbling on
Yo sister
You sure heard me
Singing in the rain for some love
You took me unaware
Said things to make me care
Now the time is ripe and you're so good
Ask me what I like and I say
Don't stop swaying baby
You soothe my soul and I stop searching
When I get lost in the rhythm
Everything stops hurting
Don't stop swaying baby
Take it slow
And I keep yearning
Hansel and Gretel are holding hands deep in the forest. They are lost. This is
Their own story. The two have fallen in love, and so, after a long quietness
Amidst the creatures of the night, they begin to kiss. Traveling like heat
Through each other's bodies, they pass through centuries of insecurity and into
A rhythm where they are not afraid.
(Don't stop swaying baby...)
Mamma has led these children into the wild unknown for reasons, known, with
Father's help, of course, they tried very hard to get back home, but of course,
They could not.
(Don't stop swaying baby...)
And so, they find themselves through the darkness, through the sadness, making
Love, making peace, making music. They find themselves, through the chaos,
Making sense. This is what they want. This is who they are. These are the
Things they need.
(Don't stop swaying baby...)
In "Don't Stop Swaying," Sophie B. Hawkins tells the story of two people falling in love and finding solace in each other's rhythm. The first verse introduces a man Hawkins sees and desperately wants to approach but finds it difficult to do so until she finally makes him care. The second verse is from the perspective of a woman who surprises Hawkins by saying sweet things that make her care. The chorus, "Don't stop swaying baby, you soothe my soul and I stop searching," paints a picture of surrendering to the rhythm of love and finding peace within it. The bridge brings in the fairytale of Hansel and Gretel, lost in the forest but finding each other and solace through music and each other's company.
Line by Line Meaning
I saw you there
I noticed you were there
All I wanted was to start with you
My desire was to begin with you
Was the hardest thing I ever had to do
It was the most difficult thing I have done
Till I made you care
Until I convinced you to care
Yo brother
Hey, my friend
You sure heard me
You definitely listened to me
Banging on the big drums for your love
Putting in a lot of effort to get your love and attention
You called me baby then
You referred to me as 'baby' at that time
Talked to me like your best friend
You spoke to me like I was your closest friend
When the time was right you were so good
When the moment was ideal, you were wonderful
Asked me what I like
Inquired about my preferences
And I said
And my response was
Don't stop swaying baby
Keep moving rhythmically
You soothe my soul and I stop searching
You calm my spirit, and my search ends
When I get lost in the rhythm
When I become fully absorbed in the beat
Everything stops hurting
All of my past pain becomes insignificant
Take it slow
Let's move gradually
And I keep yearning
And I continue to crave for it
Again I fall
I fall once more
Lighter than the morning dew
Weightless like the dew in the morning
Fresh
Revitalized
'Cause I always never knew
Because I never realized
What I'm stumbling on
What I am struggling with
Yo sister
Hello, my friend
Singing in the rain for some love
Expressing my emotions about my longing for love
You took me unaware
You surprised me
Said things to make me care
Stated statements that made me pay attention
Now the time is ripe and you're so good
Now is the ideal moment and you are excellent
Ask me what I like and I say
When questioned about my preferences, I respond with
Hansel and Gretel are holding hands deep in the forest. They are lost. This is
Hansel and Gretel are deep in the forest holding hands, and they're unsure of what to do. This is
Their own story. The two have fallen in love, and so, after a long quietness
This is their story. The two of them have fallen in love, and after a prolonged silence
Amidst the creatures of the night, they begin to kiss. Traveling like heat
While among the nocturnal creatures, they start to kiss. Progressing quickly
Through each other's bodies, they pass through centuries of insecurity and into
Pausing time to explore one another, they travel through centuries of doubt and emerge
A rhythm where they are not afraid.
A tempo where they are no longer scared.
Mamma has led these children into the wild unknown for reasons, known, with
Mother has brought these youngsters into an unfamiliar terrain for reasons that are understood, along with
Father's help, of course, they tried very hard to get back home, but of course,
Dad assisted in these attempts, but still it was challenging to return home, though
They could not.
They failed in their efforts.
And so, they find themselves through the darkness, through the sadness, making
So in their misery and obscurity, they make
Love, making peace, making music. They find themselves, through the chaos,
Love, promoting camaraderie, and producing music. They rediscover themselves in the midst of chaos.
Making sense. This is what they want. This is who they are. These are the
Attaching importance to it. This is what they desire. This is who they are. These are the
Things they need.
The necessities they require.
(Don't stop swaying baby...)
Don't cease swaying rhythmically, darling...
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Universal Music Publishing Group, Songtrust Ave, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: SOPHIE B. HAWKINS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind