NEW ALBUMS
Q&A
Chris Eckman: “A sense of place has always been part of my songwriting”
If a Walkabouts fan asked you to describe
The Land We Knew The Best
and what, if anything, makes it different from what you’ve done before, what would you tell them?
The new album is definitely connected with what I have done before. I am still working in a certain tradition of narrative songs. But I also feel these songs have their own character. They feel less guarded and more intimate. In a way, more raw. And they have a spareness and economy that I didn’t completely grasp before.
What land are you referring to in the title? America, where you’re from? Slovenia, where you now live? Or the past, that famously foreign country?
The album title comes from a line in the song “Genevieve”:
“the heart, the land we knew the best”.
So, in a way, “land” is being used somewhat metaphorically. More as an internal landscape than an external one. That said, there are many images throughout these songs that reference the mountains and nature of Slovenia. I walk a lot in the high country here, and those sorts of atmospheres were often the starting point for the lyrics.