"What Jason's music means to me": artists on their favorite JM songs

Feat. Wild Pink, Squirrel Flower, Fust, and Brown Horse

Hey everyone,

Hope all’s good wherever you are!

Something a little different for you today…

We’ve been reaching out and talking to a handful of great artists we’ve been listening to lately, all of which have something they share in common; they all happen to be huge fans of Jason’s output over the years, and count his music as having an influence on their own songwriting in turn.

A huge thanks to all the artists below for talking us through their favorite Molina songs - we’ve absolutely loved reading all of these contributions.

S&D x

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Wild Pink - ‘Hold On Magnolia’

John Ross (Wild Pink): “'Hold On Magnolia' is probably my favorite song of Jason Molina's. It's a pretty deceptively epic song that goes everywhere. The lyrics are really beautiful and forlorn and I think they're about a guy who's dying - It's pretty heavy without being heavy handed somehow, which is something JM was very good at. This song (and the album 'The Magnolia Electric Co.') was a pretty big inspo on my latest album 'Dulling The Horns' and I never get used to the fact I get to play with Mike 'Slo Mo' Brenner from Songs: Ohia.. A true honor.”

Wild Pink’s excellent latest album ‘Dulling The Horns’ is out now via Fire Talk Records, which you can listen to and buy here: https://wildpink.bandcamp.com/

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Squirrel Flower - ‘Didn’t It Rain’

Ella Williams (Squirrel Flower): “My favorite Molina song, 'Didn't It Rain' is also the first song of his I ever heard-- it was on a mix CD a friend made me in 2014 when I'd just moved to Iowa from the east coast. I was trying to acclimate to rural midwest living, the landscape made me feel like I was falling off the earth, it made me dizzy. I was searching for music and sounds to mimic the expanses of the midwest, the hills, the sky, and Songs: Ohia was it. His use of space influences all of the music I make. This song is also a great example of the way that Molina pays attention + pays homage to the history and context of folk music.

Two summers ago on tour, I booked a random airbnb in Bloomington, Indiana, and it turned out to be above Russian Recording, where Magnolia Electric Co. recorded. Mike turned out to be a fan of my music and invited us into the studio. He had one of Jason's old guitars and one of his amps. We recorded an impromptu cover of 'Didn't It Rain.' Who knows if it'll ever see the light of day, but playing that guitar was a highlight of my life.”

Squirrel Flower’s latest album ‘Tomorrow’s Fire’ arrived via Full Time Hobby last year and comes highly recommended. Find it here: https://squirrelflower.bandcamp.com

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Fust - ‘Texas 71’

Aaron Dowdy (Fust): “Molina is without question one of the greatest songwriters who has lived. It doesn’t even go without saying, it must be said. It’s of course the band––such a great band––and it’s the lyrics, which are so honest and confusing and painful that I sometimes find myself overcome with emotion over something he says that I don’t even really understand. But I think what makes Molina so inspiring––for me at least––is that he keeps things simple at the level of the song form, but with just enough… impurity to make each song feel off. Let me put it this way: he adds something to the simple song to make the song itself feel like it’s struggling as much as he is.

This can be as simple as with ‘Didn’t it Rain’––the first Molina song I ever heard––where the second chord in the loop is so beautifully unnerving. It’s just a four-chord song but because one of the chords jolts you, he is able to turn his melodies inside out every time he routes through that chord. Or the third verse of ‘O! Grace’ which I think is so melodically genius. I pride myself in being able to sing melodies, any melody, but I can never sing that one. It’s so rare when someone is able to write a melody with phrasing so unnaturally unique that there’s no hope of joining along: he must go it alone.

While ‘Trials & Errors’ is my favorite of the albums, I really respect the searching quality of ‘Sojourner’. Every time I listen to it, it sounds like someone too skilled, who is writing the music in front of us. I will choose the song ‘Texas 71’ for my pick here. So simple, barely written, barely performed, his voice strangely low, the two leads rambling together, the melodic loops so comforting. Rarely does a long car ride go by without me listening to it. It is a song that is a road, every road now Texas 71, every road now passing from Brady to Blessing. And for those of us so enticed by the next best thing, the next good thing, we have here a patron saint of caution to heed us: “Now I think twice about every bargain”. Glad I have a teacher of caution and patience like Molina.”

We’ve been enjoying listening to Fust’s latest collection ‘Songs of the Rail’, released at the beginning of this year via Dear Life Records. You can stream/purchase it via Fust’s Bandcamp here: https://fust.bandcamp.com/

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Brown Horse - ‘Whip-poor-will’

Rowan Braham (Brown Horse): “It was actually Didn’t it Rain, with its gospel song title, that my brother bought for me on CD and I feel like that was my proper introduction. There’s such a unique atmosphere to his work and you really kind of inhabit it. I don’t know anything quite like Molina’s and Jennie Benford’s harmonising in the album’s last few minutes: “I’ll help you try, try to beat it.” It’s alternately devastating and inspiring. I’ll always hear that refrain as “space is loneliness”, yet he had this real gift for working with emptiness and for creating things that could feel huge or vast.

When we were lucky enough to be asked by Darcie to play a couple of Molina’s songs at End of the Road this year, (along with fulfilling a dream of leading a group rendition of ‘Farewell Transmission’) we opted for ‘Whip-poor-will’. It’s the version from Josephine that we were constantly asking for in the van. He created such a different feel on that record - it’s quite a bright arrangement and really him at his most consoling.

Starting out alone in a hotel room with the window open, someone looks out at the rhododendrons in the “cool mountain light”. You kind of feel like you’re there immediately. For me, there’s something about the movement when he shifts from the bell-ringing in heaven back to this really particular, localised situation: “some of us with our windows open in the southern cross hotel.” I love how “some of us” is just himself here, but then by the end we know it’s not at all - he’s asking for a song for the “left behind”. Whether it’s the angels or the bird’s call. Whether he’s waiting for an answer or whether this is it. I think for us singing and playing music is like that, and Jason Molina’s especially: “it ain’t hallelujah, but it might as well have been.””

Brown Horse’s debut album ‘Reservoir’ is out now via Loose Music, and is another record we’ve been digging this year. A special thanks to the band also for performing at our ‘Farewell Transmission’ UK film screening at End Of The Road festival back in September this year. Check out ‘Reservoir’ here: https://brownhorse.bandcamp.com/

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