Carla Muller’s Reflective New Release “The Last Two Years” Shines Light on Children’s Strength
One of the unsung heroes of the COVID pandemic was undoubtedly the children of the world, who were asked to make tremendous sacrifices for the collective good. Woolwich, ON folk artist Carla Muller understands this deeply. In her new song “The Last Two Years,” she recognizes and pays tribute to the immense strength and resilience displayed by these young souls. More of her music will be available on her upcoming album In Between, the second installment in a six-part musical odyssey.
“During these years, our kids were affected by isolation, fear and anxiety,” says Muller. “This is for them, for all of the parents, like me, who watched their children’s world get smaller and smaller as the days wore on. And of course, this is for my own kids who stayed home to protect me because of my own health issues.”
In December, Muller delighted listeners with her single “Snow Came Falling” and an accompanying album of the same name. She will be releasing her next four albums, Paper Stars, Bees Are Humming, In Spite Of Me, and Stones, over the next two years.
“My health has taken a few hits since 2020, but I’m working to overcome all of that,” Muller recalls. “Still, I kept going to my friends at Canterbury and for each new obstacle, I’d learn how to sing around it, and since I wasn’t yet getting the sounds I wanted from my voice and so many wonderful musicians were available to record, we just kept laying down tracks for me to sing to later. What started as one album turned into six.”
In “The Last Two Years,” Muller pours her heart into a musical expression of love to all the children whose lives were significantly disrupted by COVID, as well as a special dedication to her own kids who selflessly stayed home to protect her. She also speaks to the agonizing decisions so many families had to make –
I thought that the once the April rain would come
We’d all be free to live again
I was the reason that you had to stay apart
I was the one who broke your heart
“I can never repay my kids, wouldn’t even know where to start, for I have seen first-hand just how deeply their time away from friends and their own lives has affected them,” Muller says. “It came to me one day, all in a rush after a particularly heart-wrenching time with one of my girls. I’d have done anything, given anything to erase the pain that all of this has caused.”
“The Last Two Years” is out now, and In Between will be out this summer. Join Carla Muller on August 12 as she takes the stage for the second year in a row at the South Coast Jazz Festival, where she will perform original songs from her upcoming collections alongside Mark Kelso.
Watch the video for “The Last Two Years” below and learn more about Carla via our mini-interview.
You’ve been in this space before, and good to see you again! What’s been going on since your last single?
Thanks! Oh, I’ve been busy. There are a few things happening over at Canterbury Music Company these days. I am in the middle of a six-album project I like to call the In Between Project which includes a full-length Christmas album. 55 songs, and all but four (Christmas) songs are originals. That feels pretty good. I have literally been waiting my whole life to do this.
Last year I thought for sure I’d get my Christmas album out in time, but I really wanted to get everything just right, so I decided to wait rather than rush it. It will be released in September of this year. I was like a kid in a candy store, though with Toronto and Niagara’s best musicians to choose from, and some of the musicians on these tracks have worked together for years making beautiful music. At one point, I looked up and said, “Jason Fowler and Rob Piltch just blew me away with their rendition of Huron Carol…and I’m gonna add MY vocals to this?” It’s humbling, to say the least.
In Between is the first, and title album of the In Between Project, which is a six-album rabbit hole I’ve fallen into over at Canterbury. Julian Decorte and Jeremy Darby have been so nice to get to know and it almost feels like a second home to me now. The biggest issue was not being able to sing reliably after Covid, so while we waited for my pipes to recover, we just kept writing and setting up the bed tracks.
Tell us about the process of writing and recording “The Last Two Years?”
The Last Two Years is something I started writing before we even reached the one-year mark of Covid isolation. Originally, it was The Last Year. I thought, surely, it can’t go to two years? But, just in case, the lyrics were changed from The Last Year to The Last Two Years. Which meant I had to change the entire cadence of the lyrics and song.
The story behind the song is something I’m sure a lot parents can relate to. I have some serious health issues and after losing my writing partner Sean Cunnington to Covid in March of 2020, I was worried that I may not come out of this if I were to contract it. My kids agreed and while my son had to work, my daughters both switched to online learning and began years of isolation. My husband Tom and I manned Baby Charlotte, the children’s store in Kitchener that we own until we were forced to reopen to survive, and I stayed home after that. That’s when I decided to finish the work Sean and I had started. I felt so guilty, though! My girls were isolating themselves to protect me. And while I know there is a difference between the exposure of thousands of students at a school versus five musicians in a studio, it didn’t seem fair. Navigating isolation in the studio is something Canterbury did brilliantly, though. I always felt safe there. We did our work in separate booths for singing, and with masks on in common spaces with no more than 6 people at a time, including Julian, our engineer. Following strict Covid protocols will make a project take longer but we did figure out how to test ahead and keep everyone safe. I finished the song after a particularly difficult day where emotions ran high and I realized just how much my girls gave up, just to protect me. This song is my thank you to them. I actually used a video of Charlotte when she was very young as the opener to the lyric video. Just to show her in such a carefree time. The video closes with a picture of Emily when she was the age Charlotte is now. My beautiful girls, both inside and out.
Can you talk about your musical community and collaborators for the song?
I wrote The Last Two Years with my co-producer on the project, Scott Metcalfe. Right away, he had a sense of what I wanted the song to be and we set about writing the cello part for this. I hummed him a little bit of what I had for the cello (just the intro, really), and he expanded on it brilliantly. Andrew Ascenzo is the cellist, and he makes a difficult part sound like my very own breath, in and out, just feeling the pain of the words and the world around me. Dave MacDougall is lovely on drums, and Ross MacIntyre rounds out the ensemble. The nicest thing about all of these vastly talented musicians is that they were so welcoming to me, as a newcomer. When you bring your heart to someone like I did here, with Scott, it means so much to be listened to, and he really did.
Tell me about the scene in Woolwich, ON.
The scene in Woolwich… It’s a little embarrassing to say I have no idea where the musical community is in Woolwich. I would love a good open mic night, but unfortunately, I don’t play any instruments. Oh, I own a bunch of them, all with the intention of learning someday. It would be so nice to connect with other musicians and make music with them. I’ve been writing at home and working with cowriters in Milton, Erin, Niagara, and Toronto all of this time. I’ve never been a part of any musical event or festival here. But I have sung at the South Coast Jazz Festival in Simcoe. This year, it’s in Port Dover and Brantford and I’ll be singing in Brantford at the Sanderson Centre on August 12 with Mark Kelso. But, for the most part, it’s really just been me, singing in my kitchen and writing songs on my front porch at night. My old neighbour, Jim Miller used to hear me and come over to porch-sit with me. Sometimes, he’d show me some of the songs he’d written, and I’d share my latest with him. He wrote a brilliant song about Trayvon Martin back in the day. Really had a way with words and a simple melody. But that’s just it, isn’t it? Writing and singing just for the pure joy of it is something that goes back generations.
What’s the one song by a Canadian you wished you wrote?
Hands-down, that would have to be Insensitive by Jann Arden and Anne Loree. It just spoke to me in a way few songs ever have. The abandonment you feel when you give your whole self to someone and they just return the parts they didn’t want or need. How it feels to be used and not respected when you would do anything for someone you love. I’ve known that particular heartache and from the moment I heard that song, I knew that I was not alone. And that was comforting. That’s the thing about music; it tempers the sting of loneliness to know that someone else has felt what you are feeling. It connects us.