Welcome to The Meaning Of, a new series of blog posts exploring the meaning behind each song from my 2020 album, Heirloom. I’ll explain the stories that inspired the songs, and reveal some of the musical roots and references that helped shape my musical and lyrical choices. If there’s something particular that you’re curious about that I haven’t revealed, leave me a question in the comments below, and I’ll be pleased to answer it.

Working through the album in track order, let’s begin with Hungry Love. This is a song about leaving behind the intense love affairs of youth, and inventorying what remains.

One hot summer in the heyday of The Walkervilles, Mike was on the road, and I was home, writing songs.

Hungry Love was born by accident. It had started out as a writing exercise to try to uncover the root of why I was suddenly experiencing so much anxiety about performing live. This is why the song begins, I don’t know why I do the things I do - I was earnestly searching for the reason why I get on stage in the first place.

It was 2015, and at that point, I had already been performing for ten years, with hundreds of shows under my belt. The fact that I felt utterly seasick all day leading up to each and every show, no matter how small or familiar the venue, was bewildering and destabilizing. In retrospect, I think I now have a much clearer idea of why that anxiety occurred - poverty, my stylistic change from folk to soul, an inability to function without moderate substance abuse, and trying to keep up with the very high bar set by the musicians around me - but at the time, all I knew was that it was becoming harder and harder to keep playing shows. That year, I got on stage only 18 times, making 2015 the slowest performance year in my adult life.

With my pen and paper, I thought back on the very first show I ever played. I was 15 years old when I walked out from behind the endless black velvet curtain that framed the stage of the theatre at my high school in December 2005, and I was so nervous that I swallowed several NyQuil beforehand in the hopes that it would relax me. I played Jeff Buckley’s version of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”, and a song I wrote about my on-again-off-again boyfriend. I poured my heart out this first time because I was hoping to make him regret that we were off-again.

And so it went: the next time I got on-stage, I was trying to woo one of my collaborators, a beat boxer who became my boyfriend for nearly two years. After that, I was trying to impress boys from hardcore bands in Halifax, boys from out of province, using my music to try to win love, always. When I was a kid, I never did give a damn about a thing if it wasn’t a man.

But, hungry love didn’t last. We were too young, too fast. There’s a specific vignette I sometimes call to mind here - it’s me, and one of those on-again-off-again types, in a bedroom that didn’t belong to either of us. And every time I laid in a stranger’s bed…

Back in my sweltering hot one-bedroom apartment in 2015, with the air conditioner snoring at my back, I thought, these days, I don’t need a thing. I’ve got my soul and a diamond ring. At this point, I’ve abandoned the pretense of this being just a journalling exercise, and I’m leaning around the guitar in my lap to scribble more words down onto the page. This is the closest I get to discovering why I do the things I do: my soul is my new sound; and I’ve got a wedding ring on my hand that proclaims that someone loves me, no matter what, no matter how hard I fail. Even when I’m feeling utterly crushed by the weight of my anxiety, I’m still drawn to my instrument, and making music for myself, even if there’s no guarantee that it’ll ever be heard by anyone else. Now, I’m making my music to win myself. I’m alive, so I’ve got to sing.

At some point in my study of jazz history, I heard an anecdote about a horn player who, in the middle of an improvised solo, noticed that the clock had struck midnight, and that it was now officially Easter Sunday, and he wove the melody of an Easter hymn into his solo for a moment - he quoted it. This type of quotation is something I do with so much surreptitious joy, hoping that someday, someone will find one of these Easter eggs, and enjoy the little moment of connection between something I love and something I made.

In the very last chorus, the original line used to be, Southern love made it right - suddenly I see the light. Both halves of this lyric are quotes.

The first half is a little subtle nod to the intro of a Justin Timberlake song, “That Girl” - it opens with a short skit where JT and his band are being introduced at an open mic, and the host tells the audience to “show ‘em some southern love”. I used it to refer to the fact that I fell in love in the southernmost part of Canada, but I later changed it to “true love” because something about “southern love” sounded like an unintentional innuendo.

The second half of the phrase - suddenly, I see the light - is a quote from one of my very favourite jazz standards, “Detour Ahead”. I would sing this song to myself all the time at home, and use it as a warm-up at soundcheck at gigs (but I never play it live because my fingers still can’t get a hold of some of those chords). The song compares love’s progress to a road trip, and navigating past dangers: smooth road, clear night; oh, lucky me that suddenly, I saw the light. There’s a lot of symmetry between that message and the story I’m telling in Hungry Love.

HUNGRY LOVE - Crissi Cochrane

I don't know why I do the things I do
I've gotta stop - think it through
When I was a kid, I never did give a damn
About a thing if it wasn't a man

But
Hungry love didn't last
We were too young, too fast
And every time I laid in a stranger's bed
It went to my head, went to my head

I don't know why I do these things I do
Never used to
I was just having myself a ball
Wasn't thinking with my head at all
But these days I don't need a thing
I've got my soul and a diamond ring
I'm working for my living
I'm alive, so I've got to sing

Hungry love didn't last
We were too young, too fast
And every time I laid in a stranger's bed
It went to my head, went to my head

True love made it right
Suddenly, I see the light
Now when I'm walking home to you
I know why I do the things I do