Just like her genre, Sarah King is a little bit of everything.
With two new songs out––“Blame It On the Booze” and “Devil’s Try”––King is an acclaimed rising Americana artist who has been named Songwriter of the Year by the New England Music Awards and performed at iconic folk music festivals. Of her journey to the genre she told Keke, “I came to Americana music through a roundabout journey – I’ve played and listened to lots of genres, from metal to traditional folk to opera to country, and I always felt like my music never quite fit in anywhere I was. I was told I was ‘too folk for rock’ or ‘too rock for blues.’”
When it comes to making Americana music, she called it “this amazing melting pot of all the genres that make American contemporary music what it is.”
Americana music embodies the spirit of America––that is, an amalgamation of every ingredient that makes it a so-called “melting pot.” There’s no one way to pinpoint what exactly Americana music is, besides the fact that it’s distinctly American and beautifully diverse. Officially, it’s described as a mix of folk, country, bluegrass, blues, gospel, singer-songwriter, and roots music. While these genres on their own each have a rich history, together under the Americana umbrella they represent prairie grass whistling and New England sea and misty mornings and all the pockets in between that exist from coast to coast but get overshadowed by the glitter of mainstream music that dominates radio and social media.
Because of Americana’s inclination for acoustics and storytelling, many of its themes are often dark and heavy, exploring the hard subjects that don’t get discussed in a typical pop song. Americana is just that––the grit and reality of American lives in music form.
“I never set out to only write music about the ‘dark side’ of Americana, but my heavy, straightforward themes about grief and loss coupled with fierce lyrics kind of spoke for me. Music has always been a way for me to express feelings and emotions, and when I got serious about my music, I had been going through some hard times – my dog died, my first husband died, my mama died – and although I didn’t sit down and explicitly write those experiences into songs, the heaviness of those experiences colored my writing,” King said of her artistry.
However, there’s light behind every darkness, and Sarah King is an Americana artist who’s an expert in balancing the two, despite being known for her willingness to dive into the dark parts of the genre.
“I think it’s important to tackle some of these heavier, darker topics in music because it gives listeners permission to feel their feelings,” King said. However, “On the flip side, I don’t only write ‘dark Americana’ songs, and that was super important to me for this new record. My 2021 album was just SO heavy, it was cathartic to get those songs out – singing about the #MeToo movement, politics, death, deadbeat partners, etc. – but I don’t want to be pigeonholed as the ‘whisky and murder lady’ musically, because there’s always been more to the story.”
That “more to the story” becomes apparent in her new single “Blame It On the Booze,” with its heavy subject matter juxtaposed by a catchy hook and building beat. That contrast perfectly captures what she called “the duality of darkness and light, heaviness and hopefulness,” which is what she’s exploring with her latest project.
“We can’t fully understand and move past the darkness unless we understand light – which even took me some time to appreciate. Just because I’ve experienced really difficult times in my life doesn’t mean I have to stay there forever,” she said.
“Blame It On the Booze” tells the story of a close friend of King’s who experienced abuse in a relationship around the same time as Gabby Petito’s disappearance and murder. She said the friend was also “living the van life,” in an eerie parallel.
“It was so difficult for me to watch everything unfold from afar, because of the nature of many such relationships – her boyfriend at the time was isolating her and preventing her from connecting with people he didn’t like, including many of her close friends,” King said.
She continued, “I didn’t hear from her often, but when I did, she was always super upset and would tell me how much worse things would get when he’d been drinking, and the song just sort of spilled out of me as a way to try to process the feelings I was having while I wished I could help.” (She also noted that the friend has since found happiness, safety, and space from that situation.)
The song came naturally, too, when she sat down to write it during a festival in Kansas City.
“I didn’t set out to write the song, but when I sat down to practice, it just flowed out of me, and I ended up performing it during a private showcase that evening, just a couple hours later! I literally never do that – I like to let my songs sit and marinate for a bit, let them grow up – but the melody was stuck in my head so hard. Then powerhouse singer/songwriter Heather Mae performed right before me, and she brought a notebook up with her and said she’d just written the next song that afternoon, and it sealed the deal – I’d share my new creation too,” she shared.
“In typical Sarah King fashion, the song turns from fear to empowerment with a tiny lyrical change saying ‘nothing more dangerous than a woman pushed to new lows, she’s got nothing left to lose / next time he drinks too much we’ll help him join his shadow and we’ll blame it on the booze’ – a.k.a., make it look like he drank himself to death,” she said when discussing some of her favorite lines from the song. She also detailed how it was important to her to highlight that blaming violence on alcohol is never a valid excuse.
King noticed that the crowd had a positive reaction to the song and knew she had something special. And she was right––her captivatingly atmospheric voice injects emotion into the song in a way that can only be instinctually known, enveloping listeners in the many layers that make up the track.
The same is true for “Devil’s Try,” another single that arrived alongside “Blame It On the Booze.” This one was written by a friend who was serving as an active-duty Special Forces soldier and also performing in a metal band. King said she met her friend when she lived in Georgia and played in her own rock band, and she suggested putting her own spin on the song in 2021.
“I thought…you know, I think that song would fit in with the songs I currently have for the record. So I emailed Scotty and asked if he’d be interested in having me record it, and he was so pumped. I was thrilled! He sent me the lyrics and I got to work arranging it in a way that suited my style – changed the key so I could sing it where I wanted, shortened it a little, etc. – and we were off to the races,” she shared.
“I always loved the song though, because instead of giving up and giving in when the singer makes the deal with the devil, the singer chooses to keep pushing forward – not ready to die yet. It’s very powerful to reach rock bottom and not give up, and I love the strength in the song.”
The claps and plucky guitar create an atmosphere of strength amid push and pull from darkness, or in this case, the devil himself.
“My favorite lyric in ‘Devil’s Try’ is the power in the chorus: ‘the Devil’s got it in for me, but he’ll just have to stand in line.’ Knowing you’ve hit the bottom and you’re going to have to pay for it – but not yet – is one of those ‘stick it to the man’ moments,” she explained. That sentiment echoes her earlier notes about “Blame It On the Booze” and exploring all the layers of life through music, which is to say that it’s never linear and always messy.
Put simply, it’s life. “Life influences me the most – observing what happens in my life, my friends’ lives, and the world around me. Music is the way for me to tell these stories, whether my own or perceived stories of others and share them with those who might need to hear they’re not alone. Matching words to melodies has always helped stories stick in my head and I know it’s the same for many people.”
There’s a bright path ahead in 2023 for the queen of “dark Americana,” where she will continue bringing light to heavy topics because, “If I don’t use my actual voice to stand up for things I believe are right, like women’s rights, or to bring dark topics to light, like alcoholism, then I’m not living my authentic message. It’s so important to me to share stories and topics like this because it’s the best way I have to reach people who need these messages as much as I needed them while I wrote them. Some of these heavier topics may not be the easiest to hear or listen to – something I’m keenly aware of, based on feedback people have shared – but that makes me want to share them even more because that means they’re needed.”
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