![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/wilcox_harty.jpg\")
photo by Lynne HArty<\/p><\/div>\n
Wilcox\u2019s primary pursuits beyond touring and recording all tend to focus on music; he often leads songwriting workshops in which he can offer wisdom gained through his own 40-plus years as a musician and composer. \u201cI like to encourage people to dive into their own creativity,\u201d he explains. Part of that endeavor, he believes, is coming to terms with an immutable fact. \u201cIf you want to write great<\/i> songs,\u201d he says, \u201cyou\u2019re going to have to write a lot of bad<\/i> songs.\u201d He employs a metaphor to underscore his point. \u201cYou have to clear the loading dock so the good ones can get out of the warehouse.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Wilcox says that when it comes to songwriting, he never sets out with the specific goal of making an album. \u201cThat\u2019s always the last thing on my mind,\u201d he says, \u201cuntil one morning, it\u2019s the only<\/i> thing.\u201d Another metaphor: \u201cThere\u2019s a fig tree in our yard,\u201d he explains. \u201cI never think about that fig tree until suddenly it\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get those figs before the bears do!\u2019 And we had such a great harvest this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Wilcox, this year\u2019s harvest of songs was bountiful as well. \u201cWhen we started the [album] project, my producer Michael [Selverne] said, \u2018Send me the top-of-the-list, songs that you would really like to have on the record.\u2019\u201d Wilcox sent over demos for 50 songs.<\/p>\n
Both Wilcox and Selverne saw the producer\u2019s role as more than simply overseeing the recording sessions; Selverne helped pare down the song selection. \u201cHe gave me a lot of notes like, \u2018This song\u2019s chords are too much like that one\u2019s,\u2019 or \u2018This idea is too much like that idea,\u2019\u201d Wilcox recalls. He welcomed that feedback from his producer and longtime friend. \u201cMichael held me to a higher standard of writing. That was very satisfying,\u201d Wilcox says. \u201cI love an assignment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Way I Tell the Story<\/i> features a dozen of those songs. Inevitably, some of the ones Wilcox considered favorites still didn\u2019t make the cut. \u201cIt\u2019s like at the airport,\u201d he says. \u201cThe rental car shuttle bus comes by, and the driver just waves you off because the bus is full: \u201cSorry, dude.\u201d\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked what became of the 38 or so tunes that didn\u2019t make it onto The Way I Tell the Story<\/i>, Wilcox explains that the best of those songs surface in some other way. At a gig, he might play a new song. An audience member will ask, \u201cIs that on the new album?\u201d He\u2019ll explain that no, it isn\u2019t; hearing it live is the only way to experience it. The audience member might persist, asking why<\/i> the song isn\u2019t on the record. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t fit with the others,\u201d Wilcox will explain.<\/p>\n
The songs on The Way I Tell the Story<\/i> do indeed all fit together. While it\u2019s not a concept album, Wilcox\u2019s latest \u2013 his 20th studio release since 1987\u2019s The<\/i> Nightshift Watchman<\/i> \u2013 does have a theme running through it: navigating through the difficult parts of life. One of the album\u2019s songs reaches beyond his own experience: \u201cI Can\u2019t Argue\u201d is one of his \u201ccustom songs,\u201d written on commission for a fan who was going through tough times. On a personal level, Wilcox\u2019s wife\u2019s diagnosis with Parkinson\u2019s disease informed the perspective that he brought to all of his songs.<\/p>\n
While The Way I Tell the Story<\/i> has been out for several weeks, Wilcox planned to make his annual Thanksgiving show at the Grey Eagle the unofficial album launch. \u201cThere will be the usual suspects,\u201d he said, mentioning longtime friends and musical associates David Lamotte, Chris Rosser and Billy Jonas. \u201cAnd there will be some surprises, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
The forthright candor Wilcox exhibits in his songwriting is a key feature of his appeal to listeners. And while it comes naturally to the 67-year-old musician, it\u2019s also the product of a conscious decision. \u201cI decided years ago that vulnerability is only scary if you\u2019re holding a firewall, protecting some things,\u201d he explains. \u201cIf you’re not protecting anything, then you\u2019re completely safe.\u201d Add to that the fact that Wilcox doesn\u2019t write vindictive, accusatory lyrics. Slipping in a literary allusion to 20th<\/sup> century Asheville writer Thomas Wolfe, he says, \u201cI\u2019m not going to have the Look Homeward, Angel<\/i> problem of the town turning against me.\u201d<\/p>\n With a long career and a large body of work to his credit, David Wilcox still feels at the peak of his creative powers, and in touch with his listeners. \u201cI\u2019m really grateful for this kind of music,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat I\u2019ve wanted all along was to find my tribe, find the people who had the same appetite for life being juicy and full and interesting. It seems like I have found these brave people, and they have found me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Plenty of songwriters take a conventional approach to making albums; they think to themselves,\u201d I\u2019ve written ten new songs since the last record, and here they are.\u201d There\u2019s nothing wrong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30524,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,41,49],"tags":[3473],"class_list":["post-30523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-folk","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-david-wilcox","cat-30-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30523"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30525,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30523\/revisions\/30525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}