Brandy Clark has been sharing her songs with the world for more than a decade. As both a songwriter and an artist, the Washington state native has amassed 11 Grammy nominations. She also received a Song of the Year trophy at the 2014 Country Music Association Awards for Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow,” which she penned with Musgraves and Shane McAnally.
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On her self-titled fourth studio album, Clark further showcases why she’s so revered in songwriter circles. The 11-track Brandi Carlile-produced project features a harrowing murder ballad (“Ain’t Enough Rocks”), vivid story songs (“Northwest,” “She Smoked in the House”), and striking self-reflections (“Dear Insecurity,” “Take Mine,” “Buried”).
This isn’t the first time Clark and Carlile have teamed up together. The pair had worked on a couple of songs during the pandemic; one of those tracks, “Same Devil,” received a Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Performance. When the song didn’t win at the 2022 ceremony, Carlile leaned over and said, “I’d love to produce a whole record for you,” Clark recalls.
“That was really intriguing to me,” Clark tells American Songwriter before her Live In The Vineyard Goes Country set at Regusci Winery in Napa, California, in April. “She’s like, ‘I have it in my mind already pictured. It’s your return to the Northwest.’ I started thinking this album was going to be called Northwest, and that was the reason that the song ‘Northwest’ got written.”
“Northwest” is an upbeat and picturesque account of where Clark’s from. The lyrics transport the listener to her home state with tender vocals from the singer.
St. Helens’ ash is evergreen
Forever rainin’ in my dreams
I don’t need a picture
To remember Tilton River
Rollin’ back behind our house
Of all the byways I’ve been down
Highway 508 knows me the best
The compass in my heart still points Northwest
While “Northwest” is a personal account of Clark’s home, other songs have the singer/songwriter taking on the role of narrator. Opening track “Ain’t Enough Rocks,” featuring Derek Trucks, is the tale of two young girls who seek revenge after being abused by their father.
One night the ugly truth
Came out in a whisper
And that whisper was a trigger
Only had to pull it once
Written by Clark, Jessie Jo Dillon, and Jimmy Robbins during a songwriting retreat, the song began with a title. Dillon had heard the line “Ain’t Enough Rocks” in the movie Forrest Gump and told her co-writers she always wanted to write a song with that title.
“We all knew people who were survivors of childhood sexual abuse and so we started talking about that, and we wrote that song rather quickly,” Clark recalls.
While “Ain’t Enough Rocks” is a powerful story song that Clark knew she wanted to include on her album, it took some convincing from Carlile and her team for the song to kickstart the project.
“I think the reason why it felt a little bit uncomfortable for me at first is it’s not my story,” Clark admits. “So, I wouldn’t want to make light of somebody else’s story in that. I’m very much an eye for an eye kind of person [and] that’s what that song is.”
Though “Ain’t Enough Rocks” was written from an outsider’s perspective, Clark has lived the lines of “Dear Insecurity.” Clark was stuck in Los Angeles traffic while headed to a writing session with Michael Pollack when the idea for the song came to her. She was thinking about someone who had hurt her feelings and recalled a friend saying that “insecurity is the ugliest human emotion.”
“I was thinking, ‘It’s really insecurity. I need to remember that: They’re making me feel bad because they feel small,’” she recalls. “I was sitting there in traffic, and I wanted to bring a really great idea to Michael, and I was like, ‘What if you wrote a letter to insecurity?’”
Soaring string accompaniment and delicate strokes of piano alongside Clark’s whispered vocals get the song’s vulnerable lyrics across. Additional harmonies from Carlile also elevate the track’s message.
Hey insecurity,
You try on all my clothes
It just occurred to me
That you may live in my phone
“We’re always comparing ourselves to someone’s highlight reel,” Clark notes. “I’m really proud of that one all the way around.”
Clark says while she was challenged in the studio by Carlile, the result is an album that best represents herself as an artist and a songwriter.
“It was such a different process for me working with another recording artist,” Clark admits. “I think that there were challenges in that and rewards in that. One of the rewards is it’s probably the most me I’ve ever been on a record.
“All my records are made in different ways, but it’s definitely the rawest and the most vulnerable. It really became, ‘Wow, this is really me. Maybe I should title it Brandy Clark.’ I hadn’t had a self-titled album and so it just felt right.”
Photo by Victoria Stevens
