Flying high
Singer-songwriter Seth Glier returns to Oklahoma for a pair of shows in support of his fifth studio album, “Birds.”
Earthquakes were making Seth Glier late toa concert.
His ride had to re-route because ofa damaged highway. On his way to Okemah, Glier (the name rhymes with clear) learned that earthquakes were shaking up more than a road.
“He was explaining to me how that was affecting his family’s life and dealing with having to resethis kitchen in the afternoon after an earthquake,” Glier remembered.
This was 2015, and the Massachusetts-bornsingersongwriterwas in Oklahoma for hisinaugural visit to the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival. That’s whereI sawhim perform alongsideMarc Seedorfand his blind saxophonist, Joe Nerny. I’ll never forget when Glier carefully led the trio into the crowd of the Brick Street Cafe to add even more inti- macy to his beautiful set. During that same festival, songwriter Ellis Paultalkedwith Glier over “the world’s best milkshake” at Sooner Drug & Gifts. Two years later, I was sitting across from Glier with a milkshake in hand.
Oklahoma inspired many moments on his fifth studio album, “Birds.” It’s where the album highlight, “Water on Fire,” came from. The stirring protest song mixes imagery of nature and greed over pulsing electronic organ riffs, hand claps and what sounds like a hammer hitting a train spike.
“One of my favorite things about Woody Guthrie is that rather than preaching a political agenda, he put the politics inside the lives of
people,” Glier told The
Oklahoman. “You end up looking at your own politics a little bit differently. That’s what I was trying to do with ‘Water on Fire.’ “
He sings, “Freedom is a word we bought to turn the prairie into a parking lot.” It’s a dig on fracking and re-imagines an old Ray Charles lyric. Glier, 28, has a knack for plain-spoken lyricism that strums the heart and sparks the mind.
“I’m always really conscious of trying to tell those stories in a way that doesn’t put the individuals down because I really do have a lot of love for the way of life here,” Glier said. “There’s just something else going on, and I think many of the people know it already. It’s just hard to articulate. There’s not a lot of economic options, and you have a corporation and a political system that does a pretty good job of making sure people feel isolated from their ability to stand up and fight. I have a personal vendetta against the oligarchy that our country is starting to turn into.”
There’s a conflict at play in the song. Glier looks to explore the plight of the little guy who’s torn between interests. He said he
always tries to have more than one thing happening in a song. It’s more realistic that way. That’s why life can be so disorienting, he said.
“Coming to this town, I just found that there was a deep contradiction between this love of land and a sense of respect for tradition and that is so beautiful,” Glier said. “But then, there was also this corporation that was taking advantage of the people for that.”
For what it’s worth
There’s a social consciousness weaving throughout “Birds,” but
nowhere is it more obvious than in the cover of “For What It’s Worth,” the famed Buffalo Springfield hit penned by Stephen Stills in the mid 1960s.
The chilling, sparsely produced Vietnam era track also has been covered by Ozzy Osbourne, Lucinda Williams and even Kid Rock. Stills told The Los
Angeles Times he wrote the bluesy song in about 15 minutes.
It was Glier’s manager that made the request after waking up from a meditation session.
In 2016, Glier was driving across the coun-
try for his second WoodyFest and practiced the request in the car.
“The first time we did it was last year at the Crystal Theatre, and it went over so well that we decided to record it. Another one of those things where Oklahoma elbowed its way in,” said Glier, who had also opened for Oklahoma music icon Leon Russell and met Okie songwriter John Fullwbright on a dormant volcano.
“It’s iconic and so relevant. Every lyric in that song is pretty much exactly where we find ourselves right now.”
What not saying says
Glier also did some soul searching on the Birds album closer, “I’m Still Looking.” The song’s genesis ties to Glier’s late brother. There’s not enough room in one newspaper story to properly encapsulate their relationship, but a recent TED Talk revealed how every morning it was Glier’s responsibility to clean, dress and feed his nonverbal older sibling, Jamie. He was born with autism and fought a severe seizure disorder until his death in 2015.
“I was looking for some sense of meaning,” Glier said. “Something was supposed to come out of his life other than it just being over.”
Glier co-wrote the song with a Christian songwriter in Nashville, and he noted his own religious views skewed toward atheism.
“I wanted to go there because we’re gonna approach this topic of afterlife, and we’re gonna approach it from different perspectives,” he said. “I thought maybe we could bring some humility to both sides.”
You also could say Glier found more inspiration by tweeting. At his home recording studio, Glier noticed several birds perched near his window. He started talking to them. It seems less weird when you think about how he communicated with his brother.
“My brother being nonverbal helped soften my certainty with jumping onto the other side ... because I fell in love with his spirit in the first place,” he said. “Our relationship didn’t really have language to it, so it’s something that I still think about. I’m still trying to navigate what’s going on.”
The song’s creation doubled as a healing process and informed the rest of “Birds.” Glier became more insular. He became less inclined to co-write. Glier took his time recording and found beauty in his demo’s imperfections.
“It felt honest,” Glier said. “We could rerecord this, and maybe I could unplug the refrigerator so it’s not in the guitar track, but what else are you losing with the refrigerator? The answer is quite a lot, often times. ... For the most part, I didn’t resing anything.
“That’s just the beautiful thing about story telling in general is like you tell your story as honestly as possible. So other people hear the truth in their own story. To be able to do that with ‘I’m Still Looking’ or ‘Water on Fire,’ and get emails about how that resonates or how that sort of shifts some kind of cognitive dissidence that has been living inside someone. That’s really exciting, you can’t put that on a CD.”