The Detroit singer-songwriter and guitarist reconciles the past and embraces the future on The Time That Remains.
“I feel like I know these songs the best,” said Ward about his new folk album. “When I released The Darkness and The Light, most of those songs I knew as well as these. I feel like these songs are a lot closer to me than anything I’ve done.”
For his seventh release, Ward gets up close and personal about love, loss, and wisdom across the album’s dozen tracks. He spent considerable time fine-tuning the album’s evocative lyrics, heartfelt vocals, and earnest instrumentation before going into the studio last fall.
“This is unlike any album I’ve done because the songs have been performed out more than any of my other albums,” Ward said.
“When we recorded it, we produced 15 songs, but we trimmed it back because we felt these were the songs that hung together [the best]. At one point, we had a working title called Prayers, Parables, and Pet Peeves, and those are the buckets [the songs] fell into.”
Emily Rose performs with Dan “Ozzie” Andrews during a “Ghost Night at Ghost Light” show. Photo – Jeff Spisak
Six years ago, Emily Rose tested out a new concept for a live show.
The Detroit indie-folk singer-songwriter hosted a tribute night honoring a late artist at Ghost Light Bar in Hamtramck, Michigan.
“One of the bartenders at Ghost Light is a close friend and he said, ‘Emily, you could have a regular show here if you wanted.’ He planted that seed, and I did a Jim Croce tribute night in 2017 because he’s a songwriter that I love,” Rose said.
“It was a great show and it was so much fun. In the back of my head, I thought, ‘Well, maybe someday I’ll do a monthly show where I learn a bunch of songs by a different artist.’”
At the time, Rose laid the foundation for what would become “Ghost Night at Ghost Light,” a monthly tribute show featuring local artists performing the music of departed singer-songwriters as well as sharing their own material.
“Last year I was in a position where I realized I needed something to focus my energy on,” said Rose, who launched the concert series last June. “I needed a project to throw myself into … and a lot of my favorite songwriters are dead. The idea to do a different departed songwriter every month just made sense.”
The Detroit Americana folk singer-songwriter discovered a recent songwriting prompt illuminated a bright idea – a new track called “Our Turn to Shine.”
“That song actually began as a song prompt from John Lamb’s songwriting retreat. His songwriters’ retreat, which I did last year and then I just got back from, I can’t say enough about it,” Ward said. “It just sort of jumpstarted me last year, and he does these really long involved prompts, and it was about changing out incandescent bulbs for LED bulbs.”
As one of Ward’s newest tracks, “Our Turn to Shine” features fast acoustic strums intertwined with a nostalgic, hopeful feel – “I’m a dinosaur made of glass and tin/Take a new one out and screw a new one in/But for now, I’ll light the way/Brighten up your everyday/If only for a short time/It’s still my turn to shine.”
“It had all these specifics in it. I’ve kept most of them, and I have reworked it since I got back from the camp to try and make it more of a universal appeal. It basically has become a metaphor for even if you’re old, there are parts of you that are still usable, you can still shine,” he said. “It’s sort of like let’s all celebrate that aspect in ourselves. A lot of the songs I’ve been writing over the last year I think as I look at my experience and my life, it has crept into a lot of songs.”
Ward also shines on his other latest single, “Content,” which he submitted for NPR’s 2019 Tiny Desk Contest. The pensive track includes a beautiful acoustic guitar as its sonic centerpiece – “It’s a simple life in a complex world/ I want what’s mine and you want what’s yours/But when you’re all by yourself and the money is all spent/Are you gonna leave this world completely content?”
“It’s really about what do you regret, what don’t you regret, what will you be content with when you leave this earth, and how do you want to be remembered – that’s sort of the gist of it. I do write some fairly downer songs, but usually when I have a song that I’m trying to make a point with, or it has a serious undertone, I try and find ways to keep levity involved in it. From the influence of John Prine, Steve Earle and Warren Zevon, songwriters like that who always seem to have a way of not taking it too seriously, those are songwriters who I really admire,” Ward said.
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