Kiernan McMullan is a a singer songwriter from Nashville, TN competing with the many to make a name for himself. By the sound of it, he might just have that luck with his new album, Common Sense, that will be dropping this summer. To get his name in your brain, and his music in your ears, McMullan has shared with us the meaning behind his single “Can’t Sit Still,” that will be featured on his upcoming album. Check it out below.
Background
“Can’t Sit Still” is a song about cabin fever. Routines and habits are built into our daily lives and we all thrive from it in certain ways, but some people, myself included, feel very trapped without a level of spontaneity in each day of my life. When I’m on the road I feel content. The unknown is a familiar blanket that serves as a vice for me the same way coffee and cigarettes would someone else. However, as I’ve gotten older I’ve begun to want it all and it’s tough to balance having a home life with the vocation of traveling the entire world and performing. The song is about the struggle to do both at the same time and wondering if you’re simply doing the right thing every time you leave. The song was written musically on piano first, and then as we began to work on drums and guitar parts, the rhythm started to come into play- making it easier to work on the lyrics and melody.
We began writing the song about a year and a half ago and it stayed in the writing stages/pre-production for about a year before we started really tracking.
One of my oldest friends and producer, Owen Lewis, and myself have worked on each of my albums together since Perfect People Are Boring. But with him being in Ireland running a studio with Noel Hogan of The Cranberries and me being in Nashville or on the road, there were huge gaps of time where the only medium to work from was email. After years apart where I spent most of it out on tour and he worked all over the world with everyone from REM and Snow Patrol to Courtney Love and Chris Brown, we finally both ended up in Nashville. About 3 months ago we went into Sound Emporium Studios to begin final tracking for the song featuring Sean Bennett on drums, Maria Kowalski on violin and Louisa Wendorff on vocals.
Lyrics
I thought I’d change, thought I’d stay when the will ran out to face my path
Take on that things would never be as planned
Don’t ever get to fall in love, only ever get to break their hearts
Sure I miss parts of it, but you’ve gotta brush it off and move on
Do I wanna be 50, thinking I should have lived a little more swiftly
Rather than pretending to the world that I was always busy
Or is it fate, somehow I’m not built for one place
Left to the day to day, constant change, uncertain but hey
Counting my steps
Taking the blame
Being told that I’m living it wrong because I won’t stay
Nobody guiding me
How am I supposed to have a life outside the ballroom lights when I can’t sit still
How am I supposed to really fight for something I can’t find if I can’t sit still
I get this itch in my leg and I just need to be gone, no theres nothing wrong no hate I just crave something with a little less weight. Does that weight really have to be carried? Everyone I know is getting married; I’m still in love with people I’ve never met.
Torn, between the road and home
Pretending that I don’t want it all
The method wasn’t flawed. It was me. I fell in love with every woman that I saw
Counting my steps
Taking the blame
Being told that I’m living it wrong because I won’t stay
Nobody guiding me day to day
How am I supposed to have a life outside the ballroom lights when I can’t sit still
How am I supposed to really fight for something I can’t find if I can’t sit still.
