Christie Lenée — “Fly Away”
Americana Highways is hosting this premiere of Christie Lenée’s song “Fly Away,” from her forthcoming album Coming Alive, due to be available on November 18. Coming Alive was produced by Christie with co-production by Matthew Odmark (lead vocals were co-produced by Spencer Bradham). Executive producers for the album were Bob Macchione and Dolores Lowe. The album was mixed by Mike Johnson at Clear Track Studios; and mastered by Larry Lachmann at Kevorkian Mastering.
“Fly Away” was written by Christie Lenée, Dani Shay and Lily Mae Harrington. Musicians on the track are Christie on lead vocals, electric guitars, and backing vocals; Keith Carlock on drums; Adam Nitti on electric bass; Charlie Lowell on synth pads and organ; and Ashleigh Britton Addison on additional backing vocals. This song is fresh and vibey, and builds up the anticipation that identifies that falling-in-love feeling and the syncopation of “hesitating ’cause our hearts could break.”
“Fly Away” started with the heart of a sultry electric guitar, and a riff that tickles the feeling of falling in love. I wrote it with my good friends and fellow songwriters, Dani Shay and Lily Mae Harrington last time I was in LA. At the time we wanted to explore lyrical sensations of desire, tension, and complete surrender. We also wanted to explore the feeling of excitement in finding new love, the fear of getting hearts broken, and the anticipation that inevitably builds up before taking any great leap.
My co-writers on this song were a HUGE influence into how this track came about. Dani Shay and Lily Mae Harrington are both phenomenal singers and songwriters. Combined with my style and natural tendency towards catchy guitar riffs, it was fun to collaborate with them. While we were writing the song we had 3 part harmonies going and a very unique interaction of voices. Although their voices weren’t on the actual studio track, I did my best to recreate the feeling of our writing session with the vocal parts in the recording.
The trio writing setup on this song gave some unique insights into lyrical imagery, melodic content and the vocal grooves. I will say too: I love collaborating with other songwriters, but when there are additionally two other great singers in the room, it offers a really cool perspective for vocal textures that I might not normally explore! 🙂
I was staying at Dani and Lily’s house after NAMM 2020. One night I had a dream about this guitar riff, and I woke up at 3am to record a voice memo. I knew I wanted to bring it to Lily and Dani the next day for the writing session we planned, however, the lyrical framework of what I imagined was not at all what we wrote. I suppose that is where it gets fun to collaborate with other brilliant minds…. a song might take a direction that is completely different than what was originally imagined, and likely, the power of brains coming together can come up with something really unique! Especially on the topic of love, this was a fun and creative experience for all of us. It felt like friends hanging out and was pretty low key, although we still popped out the song pretty quickly. There may have also been red wine involved. 🙂
When I recorded the lead vocal on this song, I will admit that it was far into the morning hours too. Thankfully I was going for the raspy vocal fry sound so the tired voice worked. Spencer Bradham, the co-producer of the vocals was having a blast with me and we were both being really silly in the studio. I remember jumping up and down, doing yoga poses between takes and making really funny sounds just to keep myself awake. It was one of the last vocal performances recorded on the album and our last tracking day, so I had to get it done! I’ll never forget that night. Yoga and high jumps in the studio helped… especially to make my heart beat faster, and to get the feeling of anticipation to come through on the track. 🙂
During the basic tracking of this song with drummer Keith Carlock and bassist Adam Nitti, we also had fun playing with a “mysterious” type of groove, and shifting between half time and regular 4/4 to play with the pulse in the body. It’s amazing how changing the groove of a song in different moments can really invoke different emotions.
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and information here: https://christielenee.com/