“I began writing the songs for this record when I was in a failing marriage to a man who was not only my husband but also my musical partner, mentor, and bandmate. The earliest song written for the album is ‘How Do I Love You’ and was essentially a plea to understand how to make the communication better in a marriage I was desperate to save. ‘Battlechain Rose’ is a coming to terms with the reality of deception and betrayal while ‘To Rise You Gotta Fall’ is a more hopeful message born out of a lot of therapy, contemplation, time, self-help and healing.”
Some fortuitous co-writes, including a song written with Ryan Adams, helped Bluhm distill her emotions into lyrics. “Getting to write with Ryan was really a joy; it was interesting to get a peek into his process. It happened in such a spontaneous way it could never have been planned, and I think it allowed this free, open dialog that was almost conversational.” One of the songs that include Adams’ influence is the biting “Something Really Mean.”
“I was going to write this really scathing review of a woman I hate and I wrote the whole song and I just didn’t have the last line—the kicker—so I sent it to Ryan and in parentheses I put, ‘something really mean that would hurt her’ hoping he would be able to give me that last line. He wrote back something like, ‘Scrap everything except the line in parentheses’ and so that’s where the song began. That was the most insightful writing advice I’d ever received from anyone because it taught me to ‘use your stream of consciousness, don’t overthink—say what you mean, say what’s real.’
To Rise You Gotta Fall is a chronicle of Bluhm’s state of mind following both a divorce and a separation from the only band she had ever known. Said Bluhm, “These songs are quite personal. They are the conversations I never got to have, the words I never had the chance to say, and the catharsis I wouldn’t have survived without.”
