Album Diaries | Everything

Song: “Everything”

Album: Saturday Sunrise 2023

Written: Los Angeles 2011 , orginal title “You Had to Go”

Topic: Grieving a loved one, namely a parent

This song was inspired by the death of mother in law’s mother. Their relationship was so tender and sweet, and touched me deeply. It was originally titled “You Had to Go” but I wanted to focus more on the love and admiration, not only the loss. The loss is the inspiration for the song, and hopefully creates a space to do some of your own grieiving if you have also lost someone close to you. There is a sweetness is allowing ourselves to truly feel the pain, so we can find some reverance and quiet on the other side.

Only a couple years before Ruthie passed away she told me that she held her daughter and hugged her the whole night during a particularly rough chapter. That image holds space in my heart every time I play or sing this song. Thank goodness for the people who are willing to sit with us and rock us when we need it most.

Always had you before

I don’t have you anymore

All my memories are perfect and right

You held me and rocked me throughout the night

I still remember

Your smile and frown

I’m sorry for the times I let you down

I’ll always love you 

You’ll always love me

But I’ll be good for you, wait and see

Recently my mother went through cancer, and then was given the news that the chemo and radiation would not be able to get rid of it all, and she would need to get transfusions for the rest of her life. The other part is that we don’t know how long she has to live as it is such a rare cancer. Losing my mom seems unfathomable, I hope we have lots more time with her. Our mothers become this symbol and figure that is impossible to replace. For those of you who have already lost your mothers, my heart goes out to you. It has got to be the most challenging loss, most especially if you were young, oh my gosh. All the blessings to your wonderful heart, I hope this song finds a safe home with you.

You had to go 

Yes I know

You were everything, everything, everything

You were everything, everything, everything

You were everything 

Gotta be strong

Time to move on

Don’t want to go home 

Without you there

I know you’re not gone

That feeling is wrong

I’m gonna hang on

Till I see you again

You were everything to me

Written and performed by Rachel Adell

Produced by Craig Sayer

Album Diaries | Beautiful

Song: “Isn’t It Beautiful”

Album: Saturday Sunrise 2023

Written: Australia 2014

Topic: Slow down

You slow down and see

We moved to Australia right after I had been diagnosed with cancer. The kids were little. Ten and six. Going through chemo and radiation, losing my hair, giving myself shots in the stomach, and trying not to throw up after every meal, was a bit intense. Talk about your world being flipped on its back. If you haven’t been through something massively life threatening before, I’ll give you the spoiler; it’s family. The people closest to you that become your treasures. Everything else falls to the wayside.  

Sun fallin on the floor

Sitting here with me

What do I love more than

Smiling missin’ teeth

Singin’ in my nightgown

A white bird flies by

Her hair is messy

Two clouds in the sky

I wrote this song on a Saturday morning surrounded in my adorable family. I wrote what I saw. Cutest little girl singing with me, her glorious messy hair. Both of us in our night gowns just appreciating the morning sun, the clear sky, and the occasional seagull flying past the window. Stephen making breakfast, Sam dreamily staring into space on the couch. Love them all so much. I became very aware that they were my forever, my everything. My dreams had come true. The little family I had always dreamed of was right there with me.

He’s making breakfast

Pancakes in a pan

Day dreams in a t shirt

Love to watch him stand

My boy is staring into space

No eyes quite like that

Power in his thoughtful gaze

Holding the minutes

Falling through my hands

[They are my] forever and

Everything I have

Written and performed by Rachel Adell

Produced by Craig Sayer

Album Diaries | Dreaming

Song: “Dreaming and Dreaming”

Album: Saturday Sunrise 2023

Written: Nashville 2013

Topic: The story of my childhood

This song is a birds eye view of my life span from birth until now.

Saturday morning she came into the world

Right at sunrise this small town girl

In a trailer born near the train tracks

He was yelling she turned her back

I was born during sunrise on Saturday, at home in a trailer in the Wallowa, Oregon mountains. My five year old sister was watching Saturday morning cartoons as mom screamed from the back room. My dad wanted to name me sunrise, but my mom said, “no hippie names,” and she named me Rachel from a bible. Their relationship struggled and my mom left him for the only Dad I knew until I was nineteen years old.

They moved away with another man

He made them his own then he held their hands

Way too perfect standing there in a row

The worst was coming but they didn’t yet know

My step Dad, whom I thought was my real dad, took us under his wing. The amount of photos of me sitting in his lap or falling asleep on his chest, are not few. To say I was a Daddy’s girl was an understatement. I remember nothing but adoring him and longing for his affection. Things were hard, but they were only about to get worse.

It all ended one early morning

Crushing pain holding tight to the dream

Connection drifting night and day

Internal supernova, blown away

3 things I found out in one day that changed me forever

• My dad was moving out 

• He wasn’t my real dad

• He was taking my little sister with him 

So many layers for a seven year old to unpack here. I’m a grown adult , and I’m still sorting it out. The truth is, life is complicated and messy, and our parents are real people. As kids we see them as these perfect super heroes, and so when we feel let down, we think the world has ended. In reality, it has not ended, and there is plenty of your beautiful life to live. There are ways to process and heal from these things, and we can forgive and we can move on, and live out the dreams of our heart. We may have to do it on our terms and a little bit alone at first, but with time we can find the life that has been alive within us from the very beginning.

Seeing truth, when you were blind

Finally seeing reason and rhyme

Going inward finding light

Always here alive, divine

I never believed in God. My mom raised me with the freedom to follow my own heart. She taught me to trust my gut, to find truth for myself. There is no better gift to bestow upon a child, to trust in their own ability to discern. That was the number one benefit of her approach as a mother.

Learning to dive inward and trust your own dreams and imagination is a powerful thing for a person to learn early on. Because believe it or not, everything you have in life now, you first imagined. Often times we feel we need to control the process and outcome when leading a small person along. But common sense tells us that most humans, if given the trust, connection, and freedom they deserve, will arrive at their own beautiful conclusions. There is no need for the mind control that so many try to bestow within and without spiritual settings. True spirituality is a freedom filled power that resides individually within each one of us. Many have been taught not to believe in that, to not trust that, that dreaming and praying is a pathetic pathway to disappointment. Or on the other end of the spectrum, the only way to fix your life. However, after dreaming, asking, imagining, we must study out the actions that will lead us in the right direction. The universe and God will handle the rest. 

I dreamt of my future family, my future life, my future partner. I dreamt of how I wanted it to be, how I wanted it to look. Then I put it in the hands of God and the universe to unfold whatever may come from those imaginations. To this day, so many of my dreams have come true. In small detailed ways I never uttered out loud, and in ways much much bigger than I had in mind. Expressing gratitude is all I really have room for these days. Whatever might be hard in my life, some days I can hardly comprehend that it was my belief is what got me here. 

I’m so freaking grateful. 

Best bet? Trust yourself. Trust your dreams. Trust God and the universe to listen and respond. Even if it’s in a way or on a timeline you weren’t expecting.

Dreaming and Dreaming, Dreaming, Dreaming

Written and performed by Rachel Adell

Produced by Craig Sayer

Saturday Sunrise | The Album

My new album, Saturday Sunrise, is finally born after a decade of challenges and miracles.

“Hold to hope, as the universe unfolds”

Named after the day I was born, which consequently happened in a trailer during the sunrise and Saturday morning cartoons. The perfect welcome party if you ask me. My older sister was in the next room for the whole event. Though miraculous in nature, I can’t help but imagine how inconvenient it must have felt to have your Looney Tunes interrupted by an actual live birth. I don’t mean to laugh.

“Dreaming and Dreaming” is about our family life breaking up. We all go through something, these foundation shaking life events, and they rock our worlds. Just as my little girl arms clung around my Dad’s waist wishing our family could stay together, we all cling to hope and a dream. And if we keep hoping and holding on to hope, I still believe our dreams will eventually be realized. My childhood family never got back together, like I had always obsessively hoped while watching Parent Trap on repeat as a kid. But my dream did come true when my own little family was realized. I wrote “Isn’t it Beautiful” on a Saturday morning (oddly enough) in them middle of the cancer chapter. That song wrote itself as I looked around the room and merely stated the miracle of the moment. I wanted to slow down and freeze time. These precious little people during that sweet, calm moment are now galvanized in that song.

When I released Unpainting Roses back in 2011, my kids were wee babes. We lived in Santa Monica, Los Angeles, California, though I recorded at my producers house in Compton. Yes, little white girl with an acoustic guitar stepping out of her Prius got some pretty unbelievable 2am stares. But what can you do but dorkily smile and wave? Streaming music wasn’t a thing yet, people were still buying CDs and only starting to buy tracks from itunes. Just as the new format of music was trying to find itself, I was as well. That album was a journal that worked towards first admitting there was a facade, and then second, that the facade had to come down. The process was abstract, collosel, crazy honest, and hello painful. Honest lyrics set to upbeat tunes could not have represented me in a more concise way. This album was a big step towards standing in the sunlight of my own discomfort, I tell you what. The sound would cause confusion, questions, and discomfort. Mission accomplished. Now you know how I have felt every minute of my days. It’s a dissonance I was prepared to live with, and still live with to this day. However, the experience has helped me become more familiar with the benefits of discomfort. Growth is never born out of cupcakes and feather pillows. Stepping out of old skin is cold, and leaves you raw.

“Bursting bubbles all were popping”

One month later an entirely new album fell out, Saturday Sunrise. (Though ofcourse the name switched from Butterfly Catcher to Warrior to 1978 Sunrise to Saturday Sunrise as it morphed into exactly what it wanted to become). Throughout the following years trying to release, I experienced innumerable trials. Walking through more unbelievable life stories which turned into songs that became apart of this album, and our family life. Songs like, “Hold On” and “Everything” helped heal us along the way. Not being able to release this to the world for this long, though painful, might have been entirely necessary. Sitting with work and allowing it to prove itself through the test of time was an unparalled experience. I don’t recommened it, per se, but if that’s how it had to be this time, I am feeling the value. Five songs have remained from the original album, five new ones from the Covid 19 pandemic found a home with them as well. Two halves of myself comforting and cheering on the other.

As a creator and dreamer, things can get quite lonely. Where my lonely creators at? I was surrounded in people who didn’t understand me, and therefore didn’t know how to support me. To be honest, I didn’t know how to tell them to support me. When covid hit and everything went online, I stumbled upon my tribe. My music and creative life have not been the same since. The comrodery, the collaborations, the inspiration, the sensitivity, and depth of these souls. I barely know how to take it all in. Now that we are out and about, I’ve been able to meet many of these people in person. Look them in the eyes and feel their power and passion. There is something about songwriters and idependent musicicans. They’re self-fueled, they’re not playing by the rules, they’re following their heart, and most likely doing it all while going broke. Even if their work is just a drop in the bucket, they are fulfilled. Even if they only get one comment in ten years that says their music saved someone’s life, improved their day, or changed their perspective, that is enough manna to keep going for several more years of music. I have learned and gained so much from these gorgeous artists. See what you can do about getting yourself a tribe, because I’m telling you. Wow.

Bathroom Concert Series, Los Angeles, 2019

As a random impulse I started The Bathroom Concert series right before the pandemic hit. Guess what’s fun? The first song I wrote for bathroom concert series made the album cut! Haha! “Who Loves You” was a song that wrote itself a day before Valentine’s Day. I had all my dear friends in mind. Some of them were hurting on Valentines’s day and I wanted them to know that they always have someone who loves them. “It’s me, who loves you.” That holiday can really hurt for some people who have lost their loved ones, or who are still looking for their loved ones. Holidays mean well, but when you have been through it, they can be really triggering too.

When and where the SONGS WERE BORN…

1) Where We Go, Spanish Fork, 2012 (Wind and a Cloud)

2) Dreaming and Dreaming, Nashville, 2013 and BC, 2016 (Sunrise)

3) Isn’t It Beautiful, Australia, 2014 ~cancer days (Saturdays)

4) Hold On, Spanish Fork, 2011

5) You Have It, Los Angeles, 2020

6) Everything, Santa Monica 2011 (You Had to Go)

7) Who Loves You, Los Angeles, 2019 (bathroom concert series)

8) Okay, London, 2022

9) Found Me, Los Angeles 2021

10) Alive, London 2022

Craig Sayer | musiscian, composer, producer

Then Craig Sayer entered the picture and boosted the magic to new heights. In addition to my own composition, I gave him a rough idea of my references for particular songs here and there, Radiohead, London Grammar, Aurora, Pink Floyd, Pearl Jam, and even a song from Raising Sand, Robert Plant and Allison Krauses’ album (that coincidentally shares the same mastering company as my first album, Lurssen Mastering). Craig’s musicality and instincts run deep. Most every time he sent me back his interpretation of my compositions, tears welled up. What a blessing to find someone who just gets it. The loud rumbling of the drums, bass, and gritty guitars coupled with the expressionate string and piano moments? My vocals could easily rest on a familiar bed of sounds that had been rolling around in my head for years. So much honor and gratitude to have had the opportunity to work with Craig. He was patient, professional, and flexible when I experienced inevitable emotional lows and highs throughout the creation of this project. He stuck with me, and for that I am grateful.

After sitting back and taking a look at this body of work from a birds eye view, I realize this abum really is about hope. That divine spark that keeps you getting out of a bed and leaning into your dreams. “Hold to hope, as the universe unfolds,” is a lyric from “You Have It”. And I realized, that’s it. That’s what this album is about, and that’s the message that has always been trying to reveal itself from the beginning. I feel like an excited little kid that this project is done and ready to be yours! That something real, comforting, and long lasting came from unbelievable pain and uncertaintly. Rachel, do not give up, you will grow, you will learn, you will gain wisdom through this. Something beautiful will come out of it, do not lose hope, keep going! Face your storms, then run into them. Get through them quickly, so you can enjoy the calm, watered meadow on the other side.

Australia 2014

Starting during the covid chapter and throughout the making of this album, I have spent my time learning production. There is nothing quite as satisfying as creating and composing sounds that you have in your head, without needing to explain them with inadequte language. You can hope to find someone like Craig to understand and listen (rare) but when you just need to get the music out, there is something incredibly magical about being able to create the sounds yourself. My next, next album is already sketched, now I just need to fill in with my dream musicans and we’ll be golden! If you are an independent musician, I highly recommend you learn how to create music within Logic, ProTools, or Ableton. Kris Bradley is a good resource for anyone looking into a straight forward way to learn production. No more taking direction or guidance for “how it’s done” and “how you should sound.” How ‘bout you decide yourself, yeah? It’s not as complicated as they make it sound, promise.

Over the last few years I’ve put my music in front of panelists in the music industry, ready to have it torn to shreds. Putting your vulnerability on the line for professional feedback in front of peers is a terrifying experience. Geesh. Much to my surprise, the feedback was amazing. (I mean, only 1 out of 10 didn’t get it). Not what I expected at all. When I presented my split personality within the music scene, that was especially scary. Yes, because it’s not always fun to admit that you are kind of two people, because also because the industry’s main preach is to “stay in your lane.” I mean, my lane is a two headed monster. These heads being compared to the likes of darker Norah Jones with a darkness on one side, and Cherry Bomb Runaways on the other. What’s a girl to do? Choose one and cut off the other? Not to be rebellious, but I couldn’t do it. So I stayed me, both of me. And how incredibly shocking when they loved it?! “Oddly enough, this works!” and “Keep after the unique instrument combinations in your rock sets,” and “You are very talented, I want to work you,” while handing me their card?! Ugh! *faint* Has taken me many moons to process. Have I fully processed?

After Saturday Sunrise, which is more on the dreamy chill side, you can expect the other side to rear it’s head. Female empowerment all the way, Mama. So many projects are bottlenecked, and now that I’m here, the flood gates are finally about to swing open. Weeeeeeeeee!

Because I know you’re always wondering, and because now I know how to show people what we musicians need…

HERE ARE THE BEST WAYS FANS CAN SUPPORT INDIE ARTISTS:

1) Get a Spotify account

2) Follow, Like, Subscribe, Share, Stream

3) Comment and engage on their social media posts

4) Subscribe to their emails

5) Buy their merch

6) Ask how to drop a tip

7) When you do share, add how it made you felt, what your favorite song was, what lyric made you feel validated

8) Tell the artist they made an impact on you, this is the entire reason they do what they do

Rachel Adell on Spotify

Stay tuned for the back stories and development of each song. From Santa Monica to Spanish Fork to Nashville to Australia to British Columbia to Montreal to India to Los Angeles to London. Near death experiences, cancer, having another baby, a pandemic, and an additional tragedy all creating a breeding ground for art forming and growing out of tremendous fear and pain.

I hope this abum provides you a place to sit , a place to feel, a place to be. A moment to remember all you’ve endured and survived. A place to be strengthened by the fact that you have what it takes to handle and conquer your storms. The sun will rise again.

Love,

Rachel