Today's Song of the Day, as chosen by Kevin Cole, host of Drive Time on KEXP, is "Secret Thread" by SPELLLING, from the 2019 album Mazy Fly on Sacred Bones Records.
Oakland-based artist Tia Cabral, who records under the name Spellling, found inspiration for today's Song of the Day in both a children's book and her dog. She told Culture Collide:
I remember reading this book called Brown Angels. It’s a little book of poetry, and it has these old photos of black kids just being joyful. There’s a poem in there called "Secret Thread," about the unspoken bond between people and ideas. This thing that tethers you to someone else, that you don’t need words for. So it’s not weightless, it’s the opposite, really. The secret thread is what tethers me. Even though I’m up in the sky, it’s what keeps me tethered to this world. It’s between both- you’re rooted in the earth and looking up into the sky.
Today's featured track is also where the title of her latest album originates from. She continued:
This was the last song I wrote for the record. It felt like I was collecting a lot of little treasures from other songs. I was inspired by this idea of what the spirit of this record would look like. Mazy Fly was the name I came up with for the music on this record. It’s a creature-like thing, something with wings, something that can transport you to this world.
I got the idea from my dog. At the end of writing sessions, we’d go out to this field and she’d run like a maniac. I was inspired by her being in this state of crazy energy. She was running, and it was like she didn’t even know where she was running. It’s like she was flying. And I just loved that moment of the day.
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