Photo Credit: Danielle Burren-Charles
2019 is shaping up to be a banner year for singer-songwriter Caley Conway. Just six months after the release of her acclaimed album, Surrounded Middle, Conway is back with a new digital single. “Your Wedding Song”—produced at Neenah-based Honeytone Studio as part of their curated “Singles” project—finds Conway building off the success of Surrounded Middle. The single sounds like a victory lap for a performer truly becoming comfortable in her own skin.
“Your Wedding Song” was recorded over what Conway calls an “intense and highly concentrated” weekend recording session. Conway had finished writing the song before entering the studio and had even sent the Honeytone production team a series of demos for the track in advance. Such preparation, along with the fact that Conway was only recording one song, compelled her to see “Your Wedding Song” as a stand-alone project. The single will be a part of a broader collection, but to Conway, “It seems so much more like a one-off thing.”
Freed from the responsibility of having to record a multi-track album, Conway gave “Your Wedding Song” her complete and undivided attention. Such attention allowed Conway to experiment with a variety of instruments and push her songwriting in new directions. As on Surrounded Middle, Conway’s vocals and guitar playing remain front-and-center on “Your Wedding Song.” Yet the single also hears Conway bringing in piano, synthesizers and multiple guitar tracks into the mix. The result is a remarkably full-sounding single, one that sounds more like a band and less like a group of musicians backing a singer-songwriter.
Lyrically, “Your Wedding Song” explores Conway’s admittedly complicated thoughts on marriage. Following her cousin’s recent wedding, Conway founding herself considering marriage as “a somewhat reckless convention. [Her wedding] just got me thinking about the oaths or vows or promises that you’re making to each other.” Moreover, Conway was also simultaneously assessing the place of co-dependency within her life, so she “was a little rattled about having these conversations about someone close to me getting married. I was just kind of picturing myself in that situation, up there at the altar and being like, ‘Man, you’re really signing something over that you shouldn’t be yet.’”
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Perhaps not surprisingly, “Your Wedding Song” exudes a sense of cynicism throughout its verses. At one point, for example, Conway wryly notes that she’s “cracked the couple’s key / you’re warm and I’m lazy.” Yet the song’s chorus belies a feeling of optimism, one that seems to suggest that Conway has not fully given up on love. “I’ll never change my mind on you,” she sings, “I’ll never change my mind again / long as I live.” Who says romance is dead?
Caley Conway performs along with Wavy V and L’Resorts at Anodyne Coffee Roasting Co., 224 W. Bruce St., on Friday, Nov. 15 at 8 p.m.
