Based in Brooklyn but born in North Carolina, CF Watkins finds this way to combine the bustle of a city street and the stroll along a quiet country road so seamlessly in the music she has been creating these past four years.
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And for the follow up to her 2016 debut I Am New, entitled Babygirl, the growth in her direction as a singer-songwriter is palpable.
“When I think about my last album, I feel I was writing songs about weakness,” Watkins says. “With this album, I made a conscious effort to write songs about the power of choosing yourself.”
Watkins did so by chosing to focus on themes of empowerment and the strength of female friendship over the heartbreak of romantic relationships.
“Romances have come in and out of my life,” says Cf Watkins, “but through it all, the relationships that continue to open my heart the most are grounded in the women I’ve known.”
Babygirl was helmed by Max Hart, a producer and multi-instrumentalist who has previously worked with artists like The War On Drugs, Katy Perry, and Melissa Etheridge. The two met through friends and recorded covers of Patsy Cline and Gillian Welch for fun before they decided to work on an album together.
Right from the opening track, “The Tell,” the collaboration between Hart and Watkins displays its strength from the get-go, and American Songwriter is proud to share the video for the single as today’s Daily Discovery.
“I met Max through some friends, a few of us got together one afternoon to record some country covers for fun,” she explains to American Songwriter. “We eventually started working on my original songs and over years it took shape into this album. I was in Brooklyn and Max was in LA- so we would take turns flying back and forth to record. Most of the recording for this song was done in LA at Max’s studio- I would fly out there for usually 5 days at a time and we would pull sometimes 11 hour days completely lost in the songs we were working on. It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had.”
For Watkins, “The Tell” also serves as a perfect poetic conduit into the emotional transition the singer experiences throughout the course of Babygirl.
“I was going through a tough moment in the relationship I was in at the time,” she tells American Songwriter. “I was feeling insecure, I longed to be closer with my partner, to be invited further into their inner world, included in their dreams for the future, to feel chosen. When I am not feeling emotionally well, that’s when I usually sit down to write a song. Max and I were already deep into working on this album when I wrote ‘The Tell’ — the vision I was creating for the album was to be powerfully feminine and stalwart. But when I sat to write this song, what came up were thoughts like, ‘Why won’t you let me in? Why am I not enough? What could I do to make you want this?’ I had just written that song so many times. I’ve felt that way so many times. I didn’t want to share that feeling on this record. Not because we don’t all feel that way sometimes, or that songs which represent moments of weakness aren’t also important- but I wanted to capture a moment when I chose myself. So, honestly, I pretended. I pretended I was so confident that I could say, instead, “‘I’m not going to beg, I’m not going to beg for you anymore.'”
And it is Watkins’ hope that listeners will connect with what she is putting out there not only on the single but the entire arc of Babygirl, which comes out October 16, 2020 on Whatever’s Clever Records
“I hope people feel empowered by it,” she enthuses. “To feel that what they desire in love and connection is not too much or too big. I hope they feel inspired to say yes to themselves.”
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