Folk artist Madison Cunningham describes the past year, 2020, as one filled with breakthroughs and barriers. The singer’s latest release, Broken Harvest, explores the idea of lost dreams and yet paradoxically, new hopes. Cunningham tells American Songwriter much of her current motivation and inspiration comes from the artist community around her and the innate desire to create.
Cunningham wrote Broken Harvest as a contribution to the National Public Radio Morning Edition Song Project. “I got the idea from thinking about other artists and what it is that we’ve all had to hang up on the hook and let sit there for most of 2020 and now into 2021,” Cunningham says, referencing the pause, or shift, that has taken place in the world of music creation, live music and musical collaboration.
“I tried to write it from that perspective but then also from the viewpoint that we’ve always had to work through loss, so in a way we shouldn’t be surprised by it now, even though it hit unexpectedly,” Cunningham continues.
What do I know? What do I hold / That will not fade away / All things fade away, the chorus asks, pointing out the two-fold reality of loss in the passing of time and experiences, but also hope in the presence and forward perspective such movement can bring.
Specifically in the songwriting realm, Cunningham says it is the process of creativity she witnesses from fellow artists that inspires her aspects of her craft. One such artist is Jon Foreman, who Cunningham recently collaborated with on the track “Side By Side.”
“Being able to watch him work in a studio space and in a writer space—those are the kind of things I want to keep close to,” Cunningham says. “I think in a roundabout, subconscious way, they further my knowledge and my intelligence around the songwriting craft. It can’t help but inspire who I am as an artist and fall in line with what I do somehow.”
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