The stories behind the music

The cover art for Everett Wren's 2025 release, Cascades, featuring a close up photograph of Everett holding his fiddle, and drawn stars cascading down to the right of him.

Cascades

Click the plus sign to learn more about the tracks and lyrics on Cascades.

  • Music & Lyrics by Everett Wren

    Inspired by my spouse’s decision and defining a new career journey.

    Grackels hunch over on a hot live wire

    Like bottles on a bar rail, waiting to expire

    They gawk at the scene below with iridescent ire

    As crosswalk and the traffic flow, same as the week before


    Ungrounded – bounde to sky – Ungrounded 


    We have the talk we need to have, & have a little cry

    Of ecstasy or pure relief, we’re not sure reasons why

    The load shifts, our bones are light, we raise arms to the sky

    Synapses send another charge and we think we can fly


    Our love sets the vector, straight to a beating heart

    Round and round and round we spin, the atoms split apart

    Cloaked in plumage, and landing far afield

    Currents pass, electrify, a fate is unsealed

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren & Music by Everett Wren & Taylor Turner

    Inspired by friends who set paths for themselves after big changes in life


    The building spires collapse around the iconoclast    To an impressive and loud reprise

    The rubble freshly in place now kindly offers him grace     And he opens his weary eyes

    As he is starting to gaze around the eternal maze    He feels his sides & stomach … aching

    A tinge of buyer’s remorse, the cart before the horse    His fingers & toes shaking


    All the circumstance leading to a different view    Extend the radius to that something new


    First he wanted to sleep but then he settled for peace   And he placed a light on the bed

    He’s left the demons behind & now resolves to decide    How he will not be misled


    A fleeting glimpse of the path heals a rift from the past   He sets off in a fevered trance

    What were his final remarks, tiptoeing past the hearse    And slowly breaks into a dance


    All the scattered ash and the shattered glass left behind   Could just as easily … tempt one to be unkind

  • Music & Lyrics by Everett Wren

    Looking up to the sky, I find it comforting to know my life and time on earth are so small in a universe of billions of stars, some of whose light has taken billions of years to reach us.

    Starlight, through a listless gait.   Emptying photos through the sheen.

    Wider, till we’re gone.  We’re speckles in the foam.


    Starlight, through an endless night.  Emptying photos from all time.

    Wider, till we’re gone.  We’re speckles in the foam.

  • Music by Everett Wren

    I wrote this real-time while playing for a contra dance and dedicated it to my friends Angie & Tim.  Angie gets the minor key part, as she describes herself as the more negative, while Tim gets the major key part, as they both describe himself as the more positive in the couple.

  • Music & Lyrics by Everett Wren & Nathan Quiring

    This is a song about a growing love between two people under the witness of the moon and stars.


    I don’t mind sharing the moonbeams, would you?      Intentions cast in a spotlight of pale blue

    Time slips away, what did we say,   Choosing the words that set in … our new perigee


    I don’t know what I would do in this world without you


    We tug at stars at stars above us, we two. Our outstretched arms embrace them, just a few.

    Meeting their will, we take a fill Of cascades of light, and we rest in their spell


    As gravity pulls our shimmering orbs We hold each other…  close to our core.

  • Music & Lyrics by Everett Wren

    This is a story about ghosts finding their way through an earthly portal in the woods to the afterlife.


    Naked bed, beneath the rafter.   Coils bent, when there was laughter

    Morning fog settles in, and then burns off again


    Narrow stairs, lead to the heavens.   Muddy paths down through the wetlands

    Dewdrops line the trail, and teardrops start to fall


    We are trying to find a way home.  By the dawn we find our back home.


    Through the door, where once passed brilliance, peers the spirit with graceful patience.

    The dusk wind stars to blow, and evening sets her glow.


    Forest stands, like alabaster.   Were she there, I could have asked her.

    The full moon waxing high, while evening stars pass by.


    Cobwebs heavy in the moonlight.  When he arrives, it’s just past midnight.

    A cool last gasp of air, he meets her on the stair.


    Cloud of chatter, above the rafter.  Leaving matter, and finding laughter.

    The embers fade away, as last farewells they say.

  • Music by Everett Wren

    I wrote this melody for my friend the day before she went in to have her wisdom teeth removed.

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren & Music by Everett Wren & Taylor Turner

    This song is about the wonder, beauty, and catharsis of jamming with friends, listening to the different ideas and instruments they bring, and just losing track of time.


    Hazy clouds block out the night, while we try, try as we might   To conjure spirits of traditional rites

    And burst forward with magnificent bites.


    The sap is boiling and pops to a beat, as we foil any retreat   Navigating past all of the tropes

    You introduce us to a new set of notes


    We bond through the melodies, the lows and the highs

    And though the path’s not clear, we follow it there


    Smoke from charcoal is stinging our skin Spruce and maple now join in the spin

    You lead a hundred or a hundred and one We find our voice and sing a new song


    Pixelated sunlight arrives, it cuts like a thousand knives While the coffee has grown cold, 

    we know the story is just being told

  • Music & Lyrics by Everett Wren

    This song is an outlet to process my emotions in misunderstanding with a friend.  


    A hot summer main street, teeming with life They dance in the fountains, and seem to revive 

    Snow cones & hot dogs, sold by your friends But when you’re confused, your reality bends. 


    Some kind of truth, we seek to aim it, you wanted a name 

    Some kind of truth, we seek to frame it, when it conjures shame 

    The hard hostile concrete, with sweat on its stage We shore up our power & try to engage 

    Smiles & head nods, sodas & cheers Yet, brewing in secret, you’re harboring fears. 


    Some kind of truth, we seek to aim it, you wailed in the phone 

    Some kind of truth, we seek to frame it, you blamed that it’s wrong

  • Traditional tune

    I learned this tune listening to the band Banish Misfortune at an amusement park at which I performed summers with my family band growing up.  I love the title and wish it for all of humankind.

  • Traditional song

    Our family band performed this when I was growing up, and we often cited it as the moanings of a spurned lover.  I have since wondered if the protagonist has made up the stories about the object of affection, who might as well be a ghost, in order to feel some emotions, like self-pity and anger.  

    My heart is sad I am lonely             For the only one I love
    When shall I see her oh no never   ‘Til we meet in heaven above


    Oh, bury me beneath the willow        Under the weeping willow tree

    So she will know where I am sleeping And perhaps she’ll weep for me

    She told me that she dearly loved me  How could I believe it untrue
    Until the angels softly whispered         She will prove untrue to you


    Tomorrow was to be our wedding God oh God where can she be
    She’s out a courting with another And no longer cares for me


    Plant on my grave a snow white lily to prove my love for her was true

    To show the world I died of grieving, for her love I could not win

The cover art for Everett Wren's album Porchlight, featuring Everett leaning agains a wall on a porch, holding his fiddle, with his guitars in the background

Porchlight

The sequence of songs on the CD tell a story.  I know CDs are not much in fashion these days, and if you do not have a CD player, then may I suggest you take a stroll through the following story?

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren and Music by Everett Wren and Taylor Turner

    Inspired by the Steve Martin movie “L.A. Story” and imagining another path for help in addressing miscommunication in relationships, I wrote this song in which a billboard is the chorale in the chorus who provides words of encouragement to the lead singer.

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren and Music by Everett Wren and Taylor Turner

    When my partner and I jog in pre-dawn Austin, I delight in all the different colors of porchlights in our neighborhood.  I wrote this song about rekindled love, where the porchlight once shone on a budding relationship and later brings them back together.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    One of the segments at a live ATXplained performance was about Austin’s Treaty Oak.  Thus inspired I wrote this song about its history.  Since that time, a few folks have mentioned to me religious or hopeful themes that they hear in the song, e.g., we can make it through hardships together.

  • Traditional

    A Traditional tune attributed to the 17th Century Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan but the arrangement is mine.

    I have always loved this tune and playing it.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    This song tells the story of a musician racing to get home from a rehearsal (or show) before his partner falls asleep.  Looking up to the sky, he swears the sliver of the moon is chuckling at his flailing attempts.

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren and Daniel White and Music by Everett Wren, Nathan Quiring, and Seylon Stills

    This song represents nostalgia while a couple is going through their wardrobe. Different objects they run across trigger memories from their history together.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    This song tells a story of someone struggling to discover their own self-esteem while deferring to the drama of characters on television.

  • Traditional

    This is a traditional fiddle tune.  The arrangement and feel follow that of former national lap dulcimer champion Scott Odena’s early 2000s interpretation of the tune.

    When I heard my buddy Scott perform this I became engrossed with his funky interpretation of this fiddle tune.  In true traditional fashion I later became good friends with folks in Austin, TX, from whom he had learned and re-imagined it.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    One day I walked by a colleague’s desk and saw just two words written in blue ink on a yellow post-it:  “Get Flowers.”  Talking with him, I began to hear how his marriage was heart-wrenchingly dissipating, and this song tells the story.

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren and Music by Everett Wren, Nathan Quiring, and Sasha Klare-Ayvazian

    It is easy to lose one’s cool when discussing emotional matters with loved ones.  I reflected on how what I heard back to me just did not reflect what I thought I was trying to say and what I wanted to relate.  It is a sad and verge of despairing song.

  • Lyrics by Everett Wren and Music by Everett Wren, Nathan Quiring, Kimberly Zielnicki, and Patrick Conway

    When you are working on a project together as a group, you must trust and encourage each other.  In this song, one member seemed to be withholding, ignoring possibilities, driving with the brakes on, and slowly killing what we had.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    A friend posted on facebook one day “Empty Inside.”  When I inquired but could not immediately reach them, I heard that their grandmother was dying of cancer.  She was a woman who was larger than life, and this song is equal part tribute to her and reminder that folks going through such losses can reach out and find support.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    This song takes another look at the situation “Have We Lost,” but with broader overtones of human vanity – we are willing to destroy our world for short-term gains.

  • Lyrics and Music by Everett Wren

    My friends gave birth to a gorgeous little girl in early 2021.  Inspired by how she explores the world with her big blue eyes, I wrote this song for her.

  • Marijohn Wilkin and Danny Dill (used with permission / licensed) and Arranged by Everett Wren

    I just love this song, the reveal, the ghost story, and the lyrics that pose propriety over one’s own fate.

The Story Behind the Recording

When my bandmate and bass-playing friend Taylor pulled me aside after a show one day to tell me he would be moving to Oregon, I realized more than ever before how fortunate I have been to meet and perform with some of the finest musicians on the planet.  So, I asked if he would be willing to do me the great favor of recording on my songs before he left. 

Over the course of a few weeks in the fall of 2019, he joined me in my studio, along with my second engineer Seth and Taylor’s new puppy Juniper, and generously contributed to 15 scratch versions of the songs (some of which are not on this album). 

Awe inspired, I started setting a plan to complete the recordings, and as chance may have it, the pandemic ironically provided me the time I needed to get the project off and running.  Because I did not feel comfortable with musicians in my studio during a pandemic, I needed to explore – as many other musicians did – how to record and possibly perform virtually.  Differences in recording spaces and microphones would have to be accounted for in the mixes.

And, again, I found myself so grateful to meet Andrew at Ghost Hit Recording, who empathized but moreover seemingly was energized by such a challenge.  He patiently interpreted my feedback on EQs, levels, etc., until we attained sonic cohesion.