Robin Young “Brooklyn”
Americana Highways is hosting this video premiere of Robin Young’s song “Brooklyn” from her forthcoming album Letters to a Ghost, which is set for release on October 17. The album was produced, engineered, and mixed by Ryan Gallagher and mastered by Carter Sanders.
“Brooklyn” is Robin Young (vocals & acoustic guitar), Charlie Burket (electric guitar & mandolin), Chris Haley (pedal steel), Carter Sanders (piano), Russ Sternglass (drums), Celia Mae Sieckert (cello), Joe McMahon (upright bass)
As Robin tells us about the song, “Writing ‘Brooklyn’ was the tipping point in my decision to finally record my debut album. It’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written, and thanks to the way that the musicians I worked with were able to bring it to life, it’s quite possibly my favorite song on Letters to a Ghost. My producer, Ryan Gallagher, and I went into the process of recording “Brooklyn” with a pretty solid understanding of what the song would sound like; but when we heard mandolin player Charlie Burket’s additions to the song, there was a palpable feeling in the room that he’d turned the whole thing on its head in the best possible way.”
“I wrote the song about a trip I took by myself to New York; so for the music video, I wanted to try to find the parts of Boston—the city closest to where I live—that most reminded me of my time in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Boston is a city that I know like the back of my hand—particularly the Back Bay neighborhood where most of the video was shot—and that also holds a lot of memories for me, being the place where the love story I write about on Letters to a Ghost took place. I really enjoyed exploring the city I know so well from the perspective of which views would best tell the story of my time in Brooklyn—the music video features a lot of the leafy streets and brownstones that both cities have in common.”
And, she adds, “My favorite part of the music video for “Brooklyn” comes at the very end, when the scenes quickly change as I sing “but I know that it’s not real”—this was an idea that I had to highlight the way that I’m constantly shifting between memory and reality throughout the song. I felt that flipping from scene to scene in this way would represent how memories turn into snapshots the farther away we get from the events that first inspired them.”
Beautiful footage of walking down the streets of Brooklyn captured for this video dovetails perfectly with the song and its messages of ennui and how it feels to spend time alone. Robin Young crafts this music to reach the goal of soul searching expression and that vibe is captured exactly here.
You can pre-save “Brooklyn” here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/robinyoung/brooklyn
And find Letters to a Ghost here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/robinyoung/letters-to-a-ghost
