Combining his love for hip hop, emo, and spoken word poetry, S. Reidy has made a name for himself in midwest DIY circles. His latest EP “I’ll be Happy When I’m Older” just hit the streets and we’re stoked to give you its backstory, through his special track by track commentary below.
Serving as a taster for an album he has slated to release in March of 2023, “I’ll Be Happy When I’m Older” comes with a new music video for the opener “Save the Date”, streaming now via Chillwavve Records (watch below).
Catch S. REIDY live at his record release show on December 3rd at The Deli in Norman, OK.
1. Save the Date
This track is truly the centerpiece of the record, and what inspired me to conceptualize the space the project occupies. I truly will never forget the day this song came to life, because I had the main guitar riff stuck in my head while I was away from my studio and guitar. So I had this song running through my mind for about 6 hours before I was even able to grab a guitar and work out the chord progression I had in my head. The song was written, recorded, mixed, and mastered all within a 24 hour time frame.
It was very intense and spiritual at the same time. I had just come out of one of the hardest mental health struggles I’ve had in years. The type of mental health struggle where when you get better you have to text all your friends and loved ones with that “Sorry I was _____ this past month, I was depressed” text.
Lyrically this song is about the recurring moments I have in my life where I feel like giving up, and then after a short period of working to better myself, I realize how truly heinous I was towards the situation. I’ve never been suicidal, but I feel like every person I’ve ever met has had moments of weakness where that voice in the back of your head tells you “Ya know, you could just end it”. Save the Date to me is that initial push back into reality. The inevitable epiphany that comes with the passing of time that says it is actually worth it to plan for the future despite what instincts tell you sometimes. A lot of folks I know find power in simply continuing to live if only out of spite, and this is my contribution to that notion.
2. Jousting (Feat. Levi Hinson)
Jousting is the only song that I wrote without the intention of it ending up on this project. It was just a recording session with one of my favorite artists and good friends Levi Hinson, that just happened to really fit on the project and its overall theme. We made the beat together, and I played all the acoustic guitar you hear on the song, while Hinson chopped the sample up, and put the percussion on top.
I wrote the lyrics “The way you sing a song, a note for anyone/ There’s light inside a world that finds its home in spite of you” with the peculier thought in my mind on how artists can tend to make so much of their mental well being and physical state public knowledge. Like how each song is a chapter in an encyclopedia on the world perceived by one given life and perspective. And how people are equally as vulnerable in almost all things we do in life, but in more cryptic ways. Me and Levi based our lyrics on the very harsh realities of being anything at all, and focused all that pent up aggression towards our existence to release it unto the universe that allowed us to make the art we make in the first place.
3. In the Red
This interlude was written to just be an intro to the song following it. But I look at my songs as passages and poems, and when I zoomed out and looked at the five lines this song offers up, I really felt like it was its own stand alone piece. While the other songs on this project to me feel more like a journey and miles of movement in 3 minutes or less, this song to me feels like standing completely still. A moment of complete sensory deprivation, of being called to start again. A poem that only can exist in the most empty place in your mind, because it is too quiet to hear otherwise.
4. The Task at Hand
The last track was a call to action, and this song is that call being met. The thing about “making your mind your friend” is that it is constant mental stimulation and labor that is unquantifiable. I was inspired by Alchemist when making the instrumental to this one. I love the way he can do so much with so little in how he produces, and how simple his beats feel upon first listen, but how deeply layered they are when you dive further into them.
This is one of the few songs I’ve written with absolutely no drums, and I feel like it was a great way to challenge myself to do double duty as the rhythm section and the emcee with my voice. The heart of this song is an idea that the strength inside you to be a fulfilled, well rounded, and strong being is inside of the soul you already inhabit. Even if those ideas seem completely abstract or foreign to you at any given time, it’s sometime I have faith in, and something I encourage folks to find in themselves.
5. I Hope We All Make It to Heaven
This song has a lot of its heavy lifting done by the amazing instrumental provided by the band Sunforger, an incredible indie rock band from Canada. The song started as an exercise in an attempt to write a song in a 7/8 time signature, and ultimately ended in being one of my favorite songs I’ve written in a long time. I like to end my projects with what I would consider an epilogue. I wrote this poem with the thought in mind that after every epiphany, after every spiritually enlightening moment we may have, there is so much life to live immediately following. And with that in mind it is important that we always have in the back of our head that those moments are beautiful, transcendental, and transformative, but ultimately mean nothing if it isn’t applied to our life and actions. The same way in Christian faith if you hear, understand, and digest the teaching of Jesus, but don’t take the actions required to show and live the love that was taught, you aren’t rewarded with the fruits of the labor asked for. That labor and fruit is defined in 8 Billion ways by 8 Billion people, and that is why I end the album by saying “I hope you make it to YOUR heaven safe and sound”.
