Premiere: Jon Danforth dissects love and loss with new EP, ‘Seasons’

Life’s seasons bash across our lives like waves on the coastline. Craggy rock lines the shore, and foam-laced ripples act as page-turning elements, a merciless force. Periods of existence, from maturing out of adolescence or learning hard lessons about love and loss, seem firmly out of our grasp. All we can do is brace for impact and hope we can adapt swiftly enough. Indie-folk storyteller Jon Danforth roots himself into unstable top-soil, a choice as much out of his hands as anything else in life. He’s only human after all.

Danforth’s new EP, appropriately titled Seasons, bends through wiry and rustic structures, as he grapples with this year’s tragedy and heart-rending bloodshed. He wields his acoustic guitar with anvil-sized force, and the heaviness of the world might be inescapable, yet he always eyes hope that’s inevitably tucked up under the horizon. “A Garden Will Grow” posits that ruin reliably begets beauty, and we must be patient. Later, on “Like a River,” a hymnal bookend to his story, he kneels for prayer ⏤ prompt to propel the listener through a year to end all years. “I want to drink from it, sleep in it / Float along, never get out of it,” he muses.

His imagery banks hard into both frankness and plush poeticism, switching gears when you least expect it. Where “Bella Jane” jingle-jangles as a dedication to his daughter, “Trouble” is a disarming and dusty saloon tune, leaning into severe truths about no-good relationships that strike like a viper in the wildnerness. Currently out of Dallas, Danforth manages to depict his winding journey through life’s lush hills and barren valleys while situating a vividly drawn illustration of the world.

Danforth’s Seasons EP drops everywhere this Friday (November 13).

Below, Danforth walks us through his new EP, track-by-track.

“Bella Jane”

I wrote this song for my daughter on the day she was born. Right after delivery, she had to be taken back to the NICU due to complications. A few hours later, she was doing great and cleared to go. When we were able to take her back to our room, she was crying, and so I was dancing with her to comfort her. The rhythm and melody to this song were what spontaneously came out as I softly sang and held her in our hospital room.

“A Garden Will Grow”

This song is about acknowledging that people can treat others horribly but also holding out hope that something good can grow out of something terrible. Dealing with challenges and hardships is a big part of life, and maintaining an honest view that recognizes the injustice while refusing to believe that it will have the final say can help to get through difficult seasons of life.

“Trouble”

Most people have experienced situations where they have fallen for someone who isn’t best for them. It’s not so much “falling in love” as it is “falling in trouble.” This song is about being drawn to someone who maybe isn’t best for you but who you struggle to resist, and you take risks to see how close you can get without actually falling. This song also has the danciest beat of anything I’ve written… because, why not? The darker melody combined with the dancy rhythm mirror the song’s subject matter.

“All Our Promises”

This song explores the idea of change in the context of a long-term relationship. How can two people stay committed to each other when they will both change in many ways over the years. Change is inevitable, but how much is too much for a relationship to bear? There’s that joke of a couple who have been together for 30 years and the husband says, “My wife has been married to six different people in the last 30 years, and they were all me.” Being honest and processing inevitable differences seems to be a better approach than ignoring them and pretending that you are on the same page with everything. The song doesn’t presume to have all the answers, but the choruses come back to making the commitment and speaking those promises all over again.

“Some Things Won’t Change”

This song explores the idea that we don’t change as much as we might expect to, even when we change where we live. Sometimes, we think we can escape certain things about ourselves by “running away,” but even though we may change in many ways, there are some things about ourselves that will not change, and making peace with that is our best bet. As they say, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

“Like a River”

I consider this to be a hymn for 2020. This year has been rough for most people, and this song is simply expressing that desire for peace that so many are feeling right now. Some days, it seems the only thing you can think or say is “oh my god,” and that’s how the song ends. On a less serious note, whenever I hear songwriters say that a song came to them in their sleep, I roll my eyes and call BS. That said, I wrote this song in my sleep. I rolled over half-awake at 4 AM and wrote down the words and then went back to sleep. When I woke up later that morning, I finished out the chords and melody. So maybe I should believe those other songwriters, or maybe I’m full of BS?

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