Song Premiere: Swift Silver’s “Blackbird’s Refrain”

Americana Highways presents this premiere of Swift Silver’s song “Blackbird’s Refrain” from their forthcoming self-titled album. Swift Silver was co-produced by Anna Kline, John Looney, and Kenny Miles and recorded at Fat Baby Studios in Whitesburg, Kentucky. It was engineered, mixed, and mastered by Kenny Miles (Wayne Graham, Senora May, Josh Nolan, Don Rogers, Pierceton Hobbs) The album artwork is courtesy of Joe King, with logo and lettering by Grace Van’t Hof, and album design by Zack Looney

Swift Silver is Anna Kline on lead vocals, harmony vocals, and acoustic guitar; John Looney on lead guitar and vocals; Kenny Miles on baritone guitar, bass, organ, and harmony vocals; Hayden Miles on drums and keys; with special guest Chris Justice (Wayne Graham, John R. MIller) on bass on the song “Looking Back.”

The organ on this will lift you up and the song itself will soar from there on Anna Kline’s vocals.  Think Grateful Dead’s “Masterpiece.”  “The higher you get the more you’ll see” — isn’t that the truth.

There’s a lot to unpack, but I’m sure you can’t help but notice that ‘Blackbird’s Refrain’ is a pretty obvious comment on what we’ve all lived through during this past year or so—and, there’s a lot of room for interpretation if you choose to look for it.

It’s the very last song we wrote for the album and it’s a special tune for both of us, I’d venture to say. John wrote the music and asked me to put lyrics to it and finish the melody. I worked on it while we were in the studio laying down all our tracks. The weight of isolation from friends and family and the uncertainty of our political climate laid thick over our daily lives—just like for every other person on the planet! We all got worn thin, didn’t we? Then came the questioning of…everything. Everything we thought we knew. It crossed my mind numerous times that if the eyes of an outsider, the eyes of history and hindsight, looked down on us they’d shake their heads and laugh at our short-sightedness. If only they could see, they would say.

Despite everything, I have hope in the fact that we all went through that pandemic year together. I hope we can connect with each other more honestly because of it. I trust that we’ll see things differently from here on out and hold on to each other and to what really matters.

The line in the last verse—”Night birds call ‘crost the holler”—actually happened. We were out at a friend’s farm late one summer evening and there were two whippoorwills calling to each other deep in the woods. I’d never heard that before! It was so beautiful and they were really loud calling to each other out into the night air, most likely for hours, even after we all went home.

John channeled some major cosmic energy on slide guitar and really laid the groundwork for a powerful tune with the chord structure of this song. Our engineer, Kenny Miles, played bass and added organ fills, which perfectly captured the vibe; and, with his brother, Hayden Miles on drums, they locked in the groove and mood of the tune. — Anna Kline

Order info:  “Blackbird’s Refrain” presave: https://distrokid/hyperfollow/swiftsilver/blackbirds-refrain

Full Album, Swift Silver, Presave – https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/swiftsilver/swift-silver