We Flew Off The Page

04/11/2024

We're inviting you to take a break from your election anxiety and have a listen to Muhammad Seven's songwriting conversation with Josh Ritter, which dropped today on We Flew Off The Page.

Find the podcast version on any podcatcher: https://www.muhammadseven.com/podcast

Find the full video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/TIDpWEyZNNg?si=WBr59UfBmPOBRdjx

Or Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/60c9GIp0CzY0pC5hTiJoqp?si=492912d6b8344485

Josh is a successful and celebrated songwriter, and I feel convinced after my talk with him that his songwriting is so good, in part, because he does not particularly care about being successful or celebrated. As he once wrote in “Snow is gone”, “I'm singing for the love of it / Have mercy on the man who sings to be adored”. I loved talking to him.

On "We Flew Off The Page" Muhammad Seven goes deep with brilliant songwriters about the songs they wrote, exploring the craft and the magic and the mystery of songwriting. Keywords: songwriter, songwriting, song, songs, writing, music business, podcast, podcaster, singer-songwriter, folk,

30/09/2024

Lizzie No brings her whole bold, brilliant self to this new episode (out today!), speaking openly about her process as an artist, life, love, liberation and more. M7 and Lizzie tear up on a few occasions. They also laugh! And immerse themselves in two songs from Lizzie’s newest album, Halfsies.

If you haven’t yet, you can subscribe to WFOTP on your favorite podcatcher here: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

27/09/2024

We Flew Off The Page is back and our October episode features powerhouse songwriter (and fellow podcaster) Lizzie No.

She’s got a new album called Halfsies and you should listen to it! https://orcd.co/halfsies

Our episode follows in the footsteps of (and was meant as a sort of companion piece to) this episode of the Basic Folk podcast, which Lizzie co-hosts with bestie Cindy Howes: https://basicfolk.com/basic-folk-94-lizzie-no/

Find WFOTP on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

09/06/2024

Tonight! I play the pre-show for Josh Ritter at Center for the Arts of Homer, I’m on 6:30-7:30 and Josh plays at 8.

Tickets: https://www.tixr.com/groups/center4art

05/06/2024

29/05/2024

For my June episode I had the pleasure of talking songwriting with Kendl Winter, one half of the banjo duo The Lowest Pair. Oh songwriters, you’re in for a real treat this month. The rest of you are gonna love this one too. Episode drops Monday, June 3rd.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

06/05/2024

Out today! Louisa Stancioff and I discuss dissonant Bulgarian harmonies, the way the place you’re living changes your work and her new album, “When We Were Looking” which is out now on vinyl/cd/streaming.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Stream or buy “When We Were Looking”: https://ffm.to/whenwewerelooking

📸 Matt Gaillet

01/05/2024

Happy Int’l Workers Day folks! My May guest is the talented, the hard working, the delightful Louisa Stancioff. Fresh off the release of her new album “When We Were Looking”, Louisa and I sat down to talk about the role of her Bulgarian musical heritage in her work, relationships and the way “where you are” effects “what you make”. The episode drops on Monday May 6.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Check out her new album: https://ffm.to/whenwewerelooking

17/04/2024

I spent the last 15 years as a garbageman and I have a master’s degree from Harvard. Now I know bragging about your Harvard degree is frowned upon, but I got that degree over a period of 10 years, while working full time and raising a child, AND battling a chronic illness - and I did it all for free (as an employee of the university), it cost me $400 in course books and photocopier fees. So yeah, I’m’a brag about it.

I spent my days going toe to toe with the university as our union steward, fighting for worker’s rights, and my nights holed up in the fanciest libraries you ever saw, writing papers. Ten years earlier I had worked on a carpentry crew hanging sheet rock in one of the libraries where I later did research. Baby powder on my arms to keep the insulation from itching. My new song has a line that repeats, “I don’t think you understand….you’re messin’ with the wrong man.” It sums up my attitude as a blue collar scholar.

Speaking of sums, “Blue Collar Math” is streaming everywhere.

Find it on your favorite player (paid and free options): https://ffm.to/oog44md

The whole record is for sale on vinyl: https://www.muhammadseven.com/shop/temples-vinyl

In spite of that degree I’ve spent my whole life to this point as a blue collar worker. I’ve been a groundskeeper, a line cook, a butcher, a bread baker, (this is where you make a joke about candlesticks) a waiter, a carpenter, a union shop steward…the list goes on. A musician. We don’t often talk about artists as blue collar workers but what’s more blue collar than art making? It’s brutally hard, undervalued, humanity can’t live without it and it and it doesn’t pay for s**t (for 99% of the workers, anyhow). Sounds working class to me!

I wrote “Blue Collar Math” a few years ago, during the time when everyone was talking about how divided we were as a nation. And we were - but I think we’ve always felt divided. And I also think we’ve always been more alike than we are different. All of us. Everybody’s heard that “united we stand but divided we fall”. When you join a union (if it’s a strong one), you learn how true that really is. Working people rarely know just how powerful we are, and the truth is, we make the world turn. And when we stand together it’s impossible to ignore our voices.

The chorus to “Blue Collar Math” goes:

“If it generates a profit
You’ll say two plus two is five
I could make a couple dollars
If I make it out alive

You assumed I wasn’t smart enough
to do your math at first
But I think I figured out this time
Just what my life is worth”

I wrote this song to celebrate the brilliance of working people. What if we reached for each other, past our differences? What if we changed our minds? Refused to be manipulated and robbed? Sounds downright exciting to me.

Who worked on this track, you asked? Patrick Mussari on guitar, Kelly Jo on harmonies, Colin Lester Fleming on drums, Theo Brierley on bass and Sam Kassirer at the keys. Produced and mixed by Colin Lester Fleming at Great North Sound Society, engineered by James Bridges, mastered by Dereck Blackburn, Quiethouse Recording.

Enjoy!

M7

26/03/2024

Ohoohooo people…the radical, magical, badassical Carsie Blanton joins me this month on We Flew Off The Page to talk about her brand new album “After The Revolution”, which is out NOW on all the streaming places, plus vinyl / CD / download):

https://www.carsieblanton.com/shop/

This was such a fun, funny and inspiring conversation with a songwriter who’s on the cutting edge of making the revolution fun and truly great songwriting. Episode drops this Monday, April 1st.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

Photo Credit Tayla St Rose

01/03/2024

Freshly released for your podcatcher to sn**ch up: WFOTP episode 9 features the WONDERFUL Pamela Means. I had a great time chatting with her about tellin’ it like it is as a songwriter, our relationship to our most personal work and cosmology (among other things).

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

28/02/2024

March’s guest is Pamela Means - her music is folk and jazz and powerful songwriting (among other things). You’re gonna love this one and it drops on Friday.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

16/02/2024

The 6th single from our new album is called “Elements” and it's out today!

You can listen to it here, for free or pay (it’s everywhere): https://ffm.to/2wyog1o

Here’s the first verse of “Elements”:

I live life in elements
Every word has resonance
Every sound has measurements
Every soul since genesis

This song a little out of the box for me, a straighter kind of rock song but with the vivid lyricism that’s become my signature style. It’s about the building blocks of life, the things that help me try to puzzle over how it’s all put together.

I really love Patrick's guitar work on this one, from the rhyth-melodic lick that carries the song to his solo near the end. It’s not like any guitar work I’ve ever heard, it’s sort of part guitar god / part funk rhythm, with a great driving tone. More powerful harmonies from Kelly Jo on this one, and the rhythm section (Colin Lester Fleming on drums / Theo Brierley on bass) cradles the song’s epic foundation in it’s sinewed arms (insert flexing emoji here).

I actually remember exactly where I was when I wrote this one - in the car, on the way home from a gig with the live band (Pat, Valerie, Clark and Jose). I think it was our packed show at Dedham Square Coffeehouse and we really had everything humming that night. I felt like the instruments had all transported me down into the cellular level, like that Martin Short movie “interspace” from 1987 (or maybe Magic School Bus if you’re younger than me?). I started writing this song that was sort of a celebration of what we were doing, but also an investigation into what happens when you break the stuff of life into it’s elemental parts.

THE WHOLE ALBUM IS OUT in advance on vinyl! You can hear “Elements” and the other 11 tracks in sweet, sweet analogue sound, for sale in the store at https://www.muhammadseven.com/shop

The whole album was produced by Colin Fleming, Engineered by James Bridges and Mastered by Dereck Blackburn at Quiethouse Recording

01/02/2024

My conversation with Chris Pureka is out now! I really love the two songs of theirs we ended up talking about, both very personal but also both dealing with our bigger human issues. We really had fun with this one.

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

31/01/2024

My February guest is none other than the talented, wonderful songwriter extraordinaire, Chris Pureka. Drops tomorrow!

Listen on your favorite podcatcher: https://linktr.ee/wfotppod

01/11/2023

Peter Mulvey is just a special person. A gifted songwriter, a riveting stage performer and one of those people who lifts everyone else up who crosses his path. You'll get a good sense for him from the episode, this was a really good conversation.

He's got a lot of interesting things to say about the writing process, the world and artmaking in general. I titled the episode "Peter Mulvey came to play" because of a great anecdote of his, about how we never "work music" - we PLAY music. I loved that.

This episode is out today!

You can find the show on your favorite podcatcher, or on YouTube and Soundcloud: https://bit.ly/3rPVKKc