Track 3: "Catharine Street"

Podcast

Sep 8

Welcome to I Owe You an Explication, I’m your host, Sean Della Croce and today we’re discussing the song “Catharine Street”.

Stream Illuminations here: https://ffm.to/qqk1jjd

Cover Image by Alex Crawford

All songs written and recorded by Sean Della Croce

Produced by Alan Deremo

What this Song is About

In preparing for this podcast I realized that I don't know when Catharine Street was written. I was initially very frustrated by this fact as I scoured my computer and files for a trace of this song (which surely exists in a box somewhere) but now I realize it's sort of fitting. Catharine Street is a liminal space. It's intermediate—it stands on both sides of a threshold. One foot in and one foot out.

Here is what I do know. When I studied guitar at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts I couldn't read music (I still can't) and I am not exaggerating when I say that I failed nearly every single course I took while I was there. It's very hard to notate music and succeed in a music school when you cannot read music. I can't overstate this fact. It was an incredible experience, I have brilliant teachers, and met wonderfully talented and inspiring students, but it was a grind. Like a grind your bones into dust kind of grind. I was 18 years old in a new city, I went through an intercontinental breakup, and then my stepfather, the late Pete Huttlinger, had a massive life-threatening stroke that was ultimately just the beginning of medical conditions that were about to become much worse.

When I lived on Catharine Street at the student housing complex called Agnes Jones House in the city's Georgian Quarter I was naive enough to think this experience would resemble the movie Notting Hill. I was supposed to be having the time of my life, but dear listener, I most certainly was not.

The Lyrical Crux

When I search this song for a line that really captures the theme, it is this, "The wind it blew then, but nothing shook, the night my motive finally took." I remember walking home late at night and the wet chill that I felt all the time, the close calls and foolish mistakes I made. The "motive" here is my decision to leave, my motivation to pull myself out of the depressive flow I had entered as all of my high hopes were dashed. Did I mention the drinking age was 18? I probably wasn’t ready for that.

The wind blew but nothing shook. There was a period after I dropped out where I just hung around in Liverpool and later did some traveling. But mostly I just drank too much and slept until noon. It was a really special time in hindsight, but in the moment it felt like a fake, disconnected life. "The wind blew but nothing shook" means a decision was made, but nothing changed because Catharine Street is that liminal space.

Music Notes

I have to give so much credit to my producer Alan Deremo here for his absolutely gorgeous and detailed intro and outro loops. They completely set the scene for Catharine Street and capture the vague inspiration I gave him to work with, "I want it to sound like freezing rain," I said.

But I will also add that there was some musical reincarnation going on in this song for me. On my last day at LIPA I filed my papers to drop out (with no backup plan I'll add). The nice lady in the office gleefully greeted me and then her face dropped when I handed over my forms. "Well, all the best" was all she said to me in a Harry Potter British accent. She stamped my documents, filed them, and I turned around. On my walk home I listened to "Wisconsin" by Bon Iver on my can headphones that doubled as earmuffs. It was the bleak winter of 2011 and his album For Emma, Forever Ago was absolutely everywhere. If you had ears and a heartbeat this record was streamed into your psyche (especially at a music school).

I would love to play the song Wisconsin, here, but I respect copyright law too much. So I invite you to imagine his beautiful voice intoning these lyrics, and you'll have to settle for mine for now.

That was Wisconsin that was yesterday
Now I have nothing that I can keep
Cause every place I go I take another place with me

Ugh, that song followed me home like a ghost. It didn't fix anything, but it accompanied me through the loneliest period of my life so far. Hey, I feel like I'm getting lost in nostalgia here, but I know we are still in an actual podcast. What song has walked with you along some lonely road in your life? Leave a comment on the accompanying blog post, I really want to hear what you listen to when you really need to listen to something.

Closing Reflections

When I really think about it, this song emerged from a haunting and to me, by the end, that resolves into strength. I know that I wrote this song after I returned home and things went from bad to worse in my family and personal life. This song is what I saw when I turned around to look over my shoulder at that year in Liverpool. And I wouldn't change a thing.