Hey Everyone,
Sorry I’ve been radio silent on here the last month or so. We’ve been working hard on getting this album done and I didn’t really have anything worth sharing yet. But today that all changes!
I am very proud to present the first single from the new album. The song is called “Be The One” and it features harmonies from an old friend (and one of my favorite singer/songwriters) named Ari Hest. Ari and I did several shows together in Grand Rapids and East Lansing when I was in college. He’s continued to do music full time, released 9 albums and was even nominated for a Grammy. If you aren’t familiar with his work, check him out. I was very excited that he agreed to sing on this tune.
“Be the One” is a song I wrote for my sister who got married in Sept. My mom had asked me if I was going to write a song for her wedding and initially I didn’t think I would. I certainly wasn’t going to write one just to write one. If I was going to write a song for such an important event I needed to make sure it was good. Rewind a few months, I was in MI. I had played a show at the Magic Bag on a Friday night. The next day I was hanging at my sister’s and my brother in law had a guitar, so I picked it up just to mess around and the first thing I played was this song. I worked on it for a bit and got the main structure and melody done and put it away.
Several months later we’ve started recording the songs for the album but I didn’t have any lyrics yet and my sisters wedding was about a month away. When I was making up the melody I accidentally said the line “I wanna be the one” and so I decided to use that as a jumping off point. I decided to write a “wedding song” rather than trying to write a song about my sister’s relationship or a song giving her advice. So I thought about my wedding and what a wedding day should be like and then the lyrics were actually pretty easy to get out.
I played the song for my parents and they loved it. I surprised my sister and brother in law by playing it at their wedding. They had no idea I was going to sing anything, let alone that I had written them a song. I was a lot more nervous than I thought I would be but I got through it ok, even thought it probably wasn’t my best performance. They loved the song so that was a nice moment.
As much as I was happy with the song I had written this song wouldn’t be what it is, if it wasn’t for the people playing on this record, ESPECIALLY my producer Zach Ziskin. (I’ll get to him in a second.) Hubert Payne (drummer for Little Big Town) did a great job on drums, he’s brought such a great groove to every track on this album. Fernando Perdomo absolutely kills every bass track he ever touches. He’s got some bass lines in the outro of this song that I love and give the song such a cool vibe. And then of course there is Zach, the man with the plan. His guitar work on this song is killer. His solo on this one is probably my favorite solo he’s ever done on anything of mine. But the guitars on the chorus are perfect and I love how he added in this electronic keyboard/mallet kind of thing that kind of combines the Palisades Drive sound with the normal Jesse Young sound and brought a really cool blend to this track. Zach has done an amazing job with this album and if you think this song sounds great, just wait until you hear the others.
Some artists lead off their single with the only good song on the album, but I can tell you right now, that this is NOT the best song on the album, but I thought this would be the BEST song to introduce everyone to.
What’s the best song? Honestly I have no idea, because every time we finish a song my opinion changes. I am so damn proud of this album and I can’t wait for you all to hear it.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read this. More things to share with you soon including details on who the other special guests on the album are, as well as the album title and cover image.
Stay tuned!
Jesse
