About That Song: Maya de Vitry
About That Song #60
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
In the 60th edition of this series, I got to talk to Maya de Vitry! A jaw-droppingly amazing lyricist, Maya just put out a new album. We dug into the meaning behind some of my favorite tunes of hers and talked about songs that helped make her the songwriter she is today.
Maya de Vitry. Photo credit: Kaitlyn Raitz.
Sarah: Hello Maya de Vitry! Just about a year ago, I was on a long road trip, which is the perfect time to dive into new music. One song by Phoebe Hunt led me to another song, which then led me to your EP Infinite. I listened to those 5 songs all through Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio, eventually finding my way to your previously released albums, Violet Light (2022), How To Break A Fall (2020), and Adaptations (2019). Earlier this summer, you released your gorgeous new album The Only Moment, and you are spending your fall on tour in support of the album.
In preparation for your upcoming Midwest dates, I’d love to chat a bit about that song. Do you remember the song that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Maya: Yes, the song was “To Live is to Fly” by Townes Van Zandt. I just happened to listen to it at the right moment in time for it to seem to speak deeply to me, personally, and for the writing—the words themselves, how the images were put together—to feel especially accessible, and tangible. I was struck by the simplicity and beauty of the melody, and especially the simple words he used—“to live is to fly, all low and high, so shake the dust off of your wings and the sleep out of your eye”—and “days up and down they come, like rain on a conga drum, forget most, remember some, but don’t turn none away”—and “we’ve all got holes to fill, them holes are all that’s real, some fall on you like a stone, sometimes you dig your own.”
Sarah: Those are the kind of lyrics that keep me ever hoping to sharpen my own pen. Big truths, simple words, with just enough imagery. So good. Once you began writing, did you feel like a writer immediately? It took me a few years of writing before I believed it—was there a song that gave you that “a-HA! I AM a songwriter!” moment? Tell us about that song.
Maya: Hmmm. I think that because I was already playing fiddle and involved in musical communities, and I’d grown up playing traditional music with people who did it for enjoyment and gathering, not for gigs or trying to be professionals, I was able to quickly feel like, if you do a thing, that’s enough. You can write a song for your grandmother and sing it for your family, and voila, you are a songwriter.
I remember writing an early song called “Birds of the Borderland”—it’s on the first recording that my former band The Stray Birds made—and it’s written as a love letter to my grandmother, in the voice of my grandfather who had died in an accident when I was 9. When I finished it, I played it for my family, and they understood it and appreciated it. It felt like I was giving them a gift, and saying something to my grandmother that I hadn’t been able to say in normal conversation. I felt like a songwriter.
Sarah: Voila! A songwriter! Yes. What a gift to be able to offer to your family, and to have them understand and appreciate it, that’s the gift right back.
I first met your music through your song “Nothing Else Matters.” I had heard Phoebe Hunt (your co-writer) perform the song live and fell into big song-love with it. Other artists have covered the song recently, such as Lindsay Lou, Bonnie Sims, and Spencer LaJoye—it’s impacted and inspired many a listener. Can you tell us about that song?
Maya: That’s a song that bubbled up from a long conversation with Phoebe Hunt. She was telling me about some waves of grief she was feeling, about accepting that some past moments in time that felt really glorious are actually over, that things have changed and evolved. I think we just tapped into some common threads there, because Lindsay immediately saw herself in the song when she heard it, and felt connected to it and asked to record it.
Maya de Vitry. Photo credit: Kaitlyn Raitz.
Sarah: The lyric in “Watching The Whole Sky Change,” track 10 on the new album, reads to me like the tenderest declaration, a stepping into, or a prayer. I was on a morning run when I heard it for the first time and I did the “stop, drop, and share” with a friend who I thought might just need that exact song at that moment. It’s a stunner. Tell us about that song.
Maya: Thank you. It is a tender declaration. For me, finding—or really, receiving, from wherever these things come from to travel through us—the line “all the promises this world is keeping without ever writing them down,” felt important to me. I am fascinated by human institutions, inventions—like money, marriage, borders, laws, nations—and I was in a bit of a spiral around the time I wrote this song, feeling really out of touch with my own needs, and how to verbalize them and communicate them.
Sometimes I just feel steamrolled and overwhelmed by society’s ideas and the general temperature of things out there, and I lose touch with wildness, or the comfort of sitting at a fire, or laying down on the ground, and being an unapologetic part of natural cycles. As a woman, sometimes the rage I feel welling up inside of me before I bleed each month feels daunting and unexplainable, and also deeply informative of an inner knowing that I can too easily lose touch with.
I was feeling raw and honest when I began this one—and it started with just lying on the ground by a fire watching the moon and some clouds, just watching the whole sky change. I’d recently had a hard conversation with my partner Ethan, and I knew that at the root of it, I was the one getting in my own way. That sky was bringing me peace. Then I came into the house, lit a candle, and started writing this song.
Sarah: Well, thank you—for sifting through, and untangling all of those emotions, lighting that candle, and writing that song. The title track of your EP, Infinite, speaks about the power of a single song: ‘It’s infinite, I’ll never know who needed it tonight.” I’ve decided it’s required listening for any songwriter friend in a moment of doubt. Can you tell us about that song?
Maya: Thank you! I’ll first say that I still have moments of doubt all the time. Or moments of feeling disconnected from my own writing, my own songs, my own self. Maybe it’s just part of the process, and being human. That song references a moment when a friend of a friend was sitting on this porch, and I was playing a song out loud, just kind of singing it to myself because this listener felt non-threatening enough that I didn’t even think she was listening. But at the end of the song, she looked up and said, “I’ve been in that song.”
This was pretty early on in my songwriting, and it just knocked me back! I was like wait, so, this song that I’ve been afraid to sing in front of people, because it seems too sad, or gives too many strange details, or tells a story that people might realize is true for me—it actually makes them think of … themselves? They aren’t so worried about me, actually? You mean, I have less to be afraid of than I thought? It’s like what happened to me with the Townes Van Zandt song—but now I was the one singing the song, and someone else—basically a complete stranger, just a friend of a friend—told me she’d been in this song.
Sarah: “I’ve been in that song”—ooh, I got the goosebumps right there. As a listener, I’m often blown away to find myself in a song written by someone who appears in every way to be living out a different story. It’s just about my favorite kind of magic.
Please tell us about your Midwest shows coming up in the next few months where we might hear you sing some of these songs.
Maya: I will be in Evanston at SPACE on Oct 1, Anodyne in Milwaukee on Oct 3, the Shi-tty Barn (sold out!) near Madison on Oct 4, and then Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on Oct 5, opening for Robin & Linda Williams! I’ll be playing all the shows with my trio.
Sarah: How wonderful! Wishing you a fantastic fall tour. Thank you so much for stopping by to talk with us about that song.
Listen to “Nothing Else Matters”
The Only Moment Album Credits
Produced by Maya de Vitry
Engineered by Alex Wilder at Phantom Studios in Gallatin, TN
Assistant engineering by Erica Block
Additional engineering by Ethan Jodziewicz at The Secret Woods in Nashville, TN
Mixed by Justin Francis
Mastered by Raelynn Janicke at Infrasonic
All songs written by Maya de Vitry (Maya Elizabeth de Vitry, BMI) except “Nothing Else Matters” by Maya de Vitry & Phoebe Hunt (Shanti's Shadow Publishing, BMI) “Odds of Getting Even” by Maya de Vitry & Caitlin Canty (Quiet Flame Publishing, ASCAP) “Burning Building” by Maya de Vitry & Oliver Wood (Royal Kook Music, BMI)
Maya de Vitry - vocals, background vocals, acoustic guitar, high-strung acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, keyboard, violin, string arrangement
Phoebe Hunt - harmony vocals
Anthony da Costa - electric guitar
Ethan Jodziewicz - electric bass, fretless electric bass, upright bass
Dominic Billett - drums, percussion
Alex Wilder - background vocals, keyboard, Wurlitzer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
