Tracker Pixel for Entry

​Cultivating songs and stories with Josh Ritter

Music | February 28th, 2018

By Howard Hardee
hhardee21@gmail.com

Josh Ritter says songs are like hiccups. He'll be doing something mundane and a tune will pop into his head involuntarily, as if due to some reflexive bodily function. But he doesn't question where the melody came from or how it appeared: he just makes sure to capture it in the moment.

"Over time, I've grown less and less concerned about not being able to sit down and write a song," he says. "I just have to be ready to write when it hits me. I don't forget ideas — I write them all down — and very few of them turn into actual songs. The others make up this mulchy kind of garden where I let the weirdest vegetables grow."

When it comes to cultivating a productive creative garden, the veteran singer-songwriter, author and painter is among the best. For the past 20 years, Ritter has written nine albums-worth of narrative-driven songs that land somewhere between Americana, gospel and soul, drawing praise from critics and building a devoted fanbase along the way.

Speaking from Brooklyn, the Idaho native discusses his hands-off approach to songwriting. He says his stories unfold line by line, and he's always surprised by where they end up.

"Really, it's a matter of connecting the story by finding the next rhyme," he says. "I'll have preoccupations, like polar exploration or archaeology or whatever learning tangent I've been on, and that stuff always influences me somehow, but I never know where the rhymes are going to take the story."

For example, he wrote recent standalone single "Miles Away" after flipping through a book of photos of Earth from space, but had no way of knowing that this would emerge: “So I went to Cape Canaveral and I went to the moon / And I stayed up there for a year or two / Famous picture of me above the blue parade / A man a million miles up, still miles away.

”There's been a strong connection between what Ritter reads and writes since he first started making music as a child, when he played violin and voraciously read literary fiction."I think the two interests kind of traveled on a parallel path," he reflects. "Then I discovered that I could play guitar and sing at the same time, sort of tell my own stories. But it wasn't until I heard Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash that I realized I could express myself in a way I had never imagined."

To this day, Ritter is beholden to those all-time greats. He thinks of his own songs as character-driven stories, like skeletons of novels that listeners flesh out with their own imaginations.

"You try to be concise as possible," he says, "because there's a level of detail a song just won't support. The song becomes a list."

Indeed, he paints in appropriately broad strokes on "Showboat," a single off his most recent album, “Gathering.” His lyrics confront the male tendency to bottle up emotions over a soul-infused blues arrangement: "I'm just a showboat / Won't catch me crying, no / Won't catch me showing any hurt."

Ritter's inspiration for the song came from the Looney Tunes character Yosemite Sam. As someone who disguises his underlying fragility with bluster, false bravado and pistol-waving, the cartoon character represents the legions of real men who are far more comfortable expressing anger than a "weak" emotion like sadness, Ritter says. And he carries that theme throughout “Gathering.” On quiet tracks such as "Strangers," "Thunderbolt's Goodnight" or "Train Go By," cracks form in his characters' facades, ultimately exposing their vulnerabilities.

"What does it mean to be a young man?" Ritter asks rhetorically. "I was writing about the characters because of the world around me right now, you know?"

The album also touches on Ritter's own vulnerability. The recordings are partly a result of wanting to move on from his earlier work, because he knows some fans remain fiercely devoted to his earlier albums, such as “The Animal Years” (2006) and “So Runs the World Away” (2010). He grew tired of trying to meet outside expectations, but also found energy in the possibility of freeing himself from those constraints.

Throughout his career, Ritter has been energized by the knowledge that he's contributing to something much bigger than himself. Ritter studied the history of American songwriting in college, which he says has provided him with a long-term perspective on how civilization and music have co-evolved, and on his own place in humanity's ongoing musical tradition.

"We're all part of this unbroken chain of musical creation," he says. "I'm fascinated by the humanity of songwriting and songs as a biological thing, that we create music due to an overflow of emotion. That's a beautiful thing to realize."

YOU SHOULD KNOW

Josh Ritter at the Fargo Theatre: CANCELED

Jade Presents hopes to reschedule

Please visit www.jadepresents.com or www.etix.com  

Recently in:

By Alicia Underlee Nelsonalicia@hpr1.com Ten North Dakota communities will participate in the nationwide No Kings Day of Peaceful Action on October 18. The grassroots movement is a nonviolent protest against President Trump’s…

By Michael M. Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu I would like to recognize some of the scholarly Germans from Russia from Canada and USA shared on the GRHC website. There are additional names not included here. If you have suggestions…

Friday, October 31, doors 8 p.m. show starts at 8:30 p.m.The Aquarium above Dempey’s, 226 N. Broadway, FargoThe annual Aquarium Halloween Cover Show is back and it is stacked. And this time there are a limited amount of presale…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com At the end of September, downtown Fargo said goodbye to another old friend; the Spirit Room closed its doors, marking the end of an era. The Spirit Room room has been a fixture downtown for the…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comThat old time religion, filled with love, is no longer good enough In the first “Inherit the Wind” movie about religion and evolution starring Spencer Tracy, Fredric March, and Gene Kelly, the…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gion and Nichole Hensenrickgion@gmail.com The wait is finally over. Those who have visited Nichole’s Fine Pastry & Cafe lately know about the recent major additions and renovations that have taken place over the past…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Dakotah Faye is a hip-hop artist from Minot, North Dakota, and he’s had a busy year. He’s released two albums. This summer he opened for Tech N9ne in Sturgis and will be opening for Bone…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Now available on Amazon Prime following its world premiere last month as the opening night selection of the Toronto International Film Festival’s golden anniversary, “John Candy: I Like…

By HPR staffsubmit@hpr1.com Mark the first weekend of October on your calendar. It’s the weekend of the Studio Crawl, which takes us all on a wonderful, metro-wide tour of our talented (and often wacky) arts community. On October…

Press release“Shakespeare with a sharpened edge.” To launch its 2025 – 2026 season, Theatre NDSU is thrilled to team up with Moorhead-based organization Theatre B to perform a co-production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By Ellie Liveranieli.liverani.ra@gmail.com When we are sick, all we want is a cure. You go to the doctor, they give you a pill, you take it for a bit, then you are cured. It happens. But unfortunately, it is not always the case. …

By Alicia Underlee NelsonProtests against President Trump’s policies and the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are planned across North Dakota and western Minnesota Friday, April 4 and…

By Vern Thompsonvern.thompson@rocketmail.comMoral accountability and the crisis of leadership  As a recovering person living one day at a time for the last 35 years, I have learned not to judge others because I have not walked in…