“Anna Jane,†the new cut from 10 String Symphony, starts out on a somber note, like a violin-led dirge. But the pace becomes lively in the jazz/bluegrass (jazzgrass?) style reminiscent of Nickel Creek or Sarah Jarosz, and a lovely ode to love (and jealousy) slowly blossoms. In the end, the praise of a woman tinges at the edges with a darker tone.
10 String Symphony is comprised of the exceptional talent of former Illinois fiddle champion Rachel Baiman & Christian Sedelmyer, who also occupies the fiddle position in The Jerry Douglas Band.
Of the song Rachel remembers, “Anna Jane was the first original song that Christian and I collaborated on. I had the verses all written and a version of the chorus but no real melody for the song. Christian came over and we worked the song up in my attic, where it turned into a subtly complicated affair, with the chord progression changing just slightly on each verse. My friend Caroline Spence was the first to tell me that the ‘Oh Anna Jane’ part was a chorus.
She said, ‘You totally wrote a chorus, that should be between every verse.’ I think at that point I was just over thinking everything a bit and wasn’t comfortable with such a simple refrain, when in reality, that was exactly what the song needed.
When people heard the first version of the song, (the chorus was just ‘Oh Anna Jane/Oh Anna Jane/Oh Anna Jane/Here we go again’) they often thought it was a love song. In fact, it’s a song about jealousy. But it’s that super painful form of jealousy where you want something (in this case someone) that your friend has, but at the same time, you know she is wonderful, and completely deserving of that person. It makes it all that much worse, because you really can’t bring yourself to be angry at anyone, which would be the easy way to deal with it. That is why, even though it’s not a love song, the first verse goes on and on about the virtues of ‘Anna Jane.’ I wrote all the verses in about 30 minutes in one of those really intense moments where your feelings are so big you feel like they are going to explode out of your body.
Our producer, Mark Sloan, helped us re-write the chorus to incorporate a fiddle melody that Christian wrote, and also to solidify the message of the song. He added those ‘she’s the only one you see’ and ‘I’ll never be what you need’ parts. I was so attached to the song I didn’t think I’d be willing to change it, but when he sent me recordings of those ideas, he had just nailed it so perfectly melodically and lyrically, that Christian and I both immediately loved it, which is RARE! Haha.â€
10 String Symphony will release ‘Weight of the World’ on October 23.