Keith Smerage Single Available now.

What inspired the song? 

The song was inspired by a horrific secret court established by Harvard University in 1920 to purge the campus of homosexuals. Thirty-two students who were suspected of being gay were questioned. Fourteen of them were “convicted” and expelled from Harvard for being gay. Three of them took their lives. One of the boys, Keith Smerage, is buried in the Pine Grove cemetery in my home town of Topsfield, Massachusetts. 

Was there a specific feeling that you were trying to elicit in listeners?

Empathy, outrage, sadness—real feeling for the young men whose lives were destroyed by intolerance, inhumanity and sanctimony. 

Do you have an interesting story about the songwriting or recording process?

The song went through a lot of personality changes in the recording process. There were times when it felt like it wanted to be a very angry rock song, with heavy electric guitars, but ultimately, it was clear that a softer approach was more conducive to telling the story and generating powerful feelings for the listener. It’s also a long song and I didn’t think the energy of a hard-driving rock arrangement could sustain itself for the length of the song. 

What were the certain stylistic/production choices you made and why?

The song has just four instruments: vocal, acoustic guitar, electric guitar mimicking a pedal steel, and upright bass. It was work to find an accompanying instrument for the emotion of the song. We tried cello, and while it was beautiful, it didn’t match the crying nature of the pedal steel. 

What are three descriptors/adjectives that best describe the emotion or melody in this song?

Haunting, sorrowful, contemplative. 

Can you provide further context around the visuals associated with this song, including any artwork or video?

I shot the video entirely on my own using an iPhone 13 Pro Max, shooting raw in slow motion at 120 frames per second for most of the allegorical or representative content, and at 60 frames per second in raw format for my performance. I then used the “silver-tone” effect on the iPhone before exporting to Photos. In Photos I added a vignette effect, and then compounded that with a vignette effect in iMovie. I did all of the cutting and post in iMovie.I shot my performance in the barn behind my house. I learned a lot and had a lot of fun shooting this. I went to the Harvard campus, Keith’s old house, the cemetery where he is buried and the streets around his (and my) town to shoot some of the footage. Went out onto the Atlantic in my boat for the ocean shot. My mother is the actor writing the letter. My husband’s hands are the ones washing blood off of themselves (it was actually Hershey’s chocolate syrup, which, according to legend, Alfred Hitchcok recommended for blood in black and white scenes. He used Hershey’s syrup for the blood in the shower scene in Psycho). That’s me with the shovel and doing the digging. I set up the camera on a tripod for that. For the grave shots, I used an apparatus that held the camera about 30 inches over the grave. I added some grass, dirt and debris, then blew it off with an off-camera leaf blower. Then I dug up around the grave and planted the flowers, and turned the camera on again. I used a six-second cross-dissolve transition to make the grave transform from empty and dark to colorful and alive at the end. The photos blowing on the table came from me blowing on them off-camera. Took many takes to get the right sailing/hovering effects, and in the case of keith’s photo, I had to tape string to the back to keep it in frame. But I shot everything myself — the baseball, the horses, the haunted doorway, the swinging crosses, the candle being put out by (my, ouch!) fingers, the old typewriter (which just happened to be sitting in a restaurant we went to the day after I said I needed one — eerie), the road, the statue of Mary, all of the shots at Harvard - everything. Matt Mahurin watched several times and gave me shot and concept advice. 

Do you have a favorite lyric from this track that you’d like to highlight? Why is that significant to you?

“The road to heaven is narrow, the road to hell is wide,” because it exposes sanctimony. 

How do you feel that you’ve grown as an artist since your last release?

I’ve become a film director! 

What has the song taught you or what do you take away from it? 

The song helped me to realize that I need to take my time in the studio, and let the song find its own instruments and arrangements and sensibility. And, if it doesn’t feel right, keep at it until it does.