“Revision is a very different process [than editing],” observed the late Oregon poet laureate Peter Sears in a 2010 interview. “Revision is re-envisioning the poem. It begins in the imagination and ends there. It is best done, I find, by carrying a poem around in one’s head and letting it stew there.”
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In a way, that’s exactly what folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Aoife O’Donovan has done with a few of Sears’ poems over the last few years–let them stew. Three of the five tracks on her new EP–Bull Frogs Croon–are musical adaptations of Sears’ poems, which she initially performed alongside a full orchestra at the Britt Festival Symphony in 2015. In the studio versions–out today–these adaptations have been re-arranged as pared down string quartet pieces.
“Back in 2015, I was commissioned to create a piece of music for the Britt Festival Symphony in Southern Oregon with Teddy Abrams and Jeremy Kittel,” O’Donovan tells American Songwriter. “While researching material, [Abrams] suggested looking to the work of Peter Sears, who was [then] the poet laureate of Oregon. I was immediately mesmerized by his poem ‘Small Talk.’ And then I found ‘Night Fishing.’”
“Night Fishing” would eventually become the lead single off Bull Frogs Croon. But initially, in 2015, O’Donovan was attracted to the poem’s depiction of loneliness.
“It was the opening line that drew me in,” O’Donovan recalls. “‘‘The water is a glaze like loneliness at ease / with itself.’ The idea of loneliness at ease with itself was something that really struck a chord. Through continued reading, I was drawn to two other poems–‘The Darkness’ and ‘Valentine’ [both of which appear on Bull Frogs Croon]. There was something about the three together that told a haunting yet familiar story. Together, they became the foundation for the song cycle.”
Working with Abrams and Kittel, O’Donovan transposed the poems into orchestral arrangements.
“[Kittel] effortlessly painted string arrangements on top, and [Abrams] added woodwinds, brass, and percussion to create Bull Frogs Croon, which we performed twice with [a] full orchestra before putting it on the shelf for a while,” says O’Donovan of the trio’s first effort to adapt the poems.
Five years later, O’Donovan returned to Bull Frogs Croon but swapped the full orchestra that had accompanied her 2015 performances for a studio string quartet comprised of close friends and collaborators.
“Last October, I asked Kittel to re-arrange the piece for a string quartet, taking elements from the orchestral arrangement and turning it into a more intimate experience,” says O’Donovan. “We went into the studio, joined by dear friends Brittany Haas, Paul Kowert, and Mario Gotoh, and recorded Bull Frogs Croon. On the EP, you’ll also hear two songs that I’ve loved singing for many years, with new arrangements for the new decade.”
Those other two songs are “Lakes of Pontchartrain” and “Pretty Bird”–the former is a new rendition of an Irish folk number that O’Donovan has been performing for years, while the latter is a new rendition of Hazel Dickens’ classic (though O’Donovan’s bluegrass band, Crooked Still, included a different version of “Pretty Bird” on their 2011 album, Friends of Fall).
Overall, Bull Frogs Croon is a quietly stirring collection, indebted both to Sears’ vision as a poet and to O’Donovan’s vision as a songwriter. The string parts on the EP are fraught, delicate, and soothing all at once. And O’Donovan’s voice is just as lilting and arresting as ever.
Bull Frogs Croon follows O’Donovan’s 2016 sophomore album, In The Magic Hour. Since then she’s kept herself busy as part of the folk supergroup I’m With Her alongside Sara Watkins and Sarah Jarosz. The trio released their debut album See You Around in 2018 and the hit single “Call My Name”–for which they just won a Grammy for Best American Roots Song–in 2019.
More recently O’Donovan has shared a moving Joni Mitchell cover on Chris Thile’s “Live from Here” show, plus music videos for “Night Fishing” and “Pretty Bird.” She’ll be touring with her string quartet this spring.
Bull Frogs Croon is out now via Yep Roc Records.
