Laura Veirs has plenty on her plate. The Portland-based singer-songwriter has two decades of wondrous albums to her name. She tours regularly. Sheâs a mother to two young children, and sheâs married to busy record producer Tucker Martine, who works with big names like My Morning Jacket and Beth Orton.
Two years ago, Veirs collaborated with k.d. lang and Neko Case on a collection of lovely folk-pop songs. In January, she released her first book (Libba: The Magnificent Musical Life of Elizabeth Cotten) and unveiled a podcast, Midnight Lightning, about the lives of working musicians who are also parents. While she found the podcast incredibly rewarding, it was also a ton of work on top of all the other stuff. Veirs isnât sure whether thereâll be a second season.
âI need to focus my energy,â she says. âI have limited energy and limited focus, so what is it that I want to focus on?â
For now, the answer to that is The Lookout, Veirsâs 10th album, which came out in April on her own label, Raven Marching Band Records. Itâs a set of charming songs built from gently-plucked acoustic guitars, tasteful electronic touches, occasional twang, and enduring melodies delivered via Veirsâs practiced voice. As always, the natural worldâsapphire skies, painted winds, cold mountain waterâplays a major role in the Colorado nativeâs lyrics. But this time, thereâs also an undercurrent of unease and uncertainty, fueled by the current presidential administration and Veirsâs protective instinct as a mother.
She was working on the songs for The Lookout right around the time of the 2016 election, and remembers grappling with how to write about her feelings without coming off as heavy-handed.
âI donât want to be obvious, but I also donât want to ignore it and be like, âEverythingâs wonderful!ââ Veirs says. âThatâs why itâs called The Lookoutâbecause we need to look out for each other. Because this is a weird time and itâs confusing, and it could get a lot worse before it gets better, and I think we need to pay attention and look out. How we do that, exactly, I donât know.
âI feel worried for my kids and the world theyâre moving into, but I also try to treasure the moments that I have that are beautiful and that do feel safe,â she says.
Veirs is a famously productive songwriter; she wrote more than 100 tunes for The Lookout before paring them down to the 12 that made the record. But after 25 years of writingâand with significant nonprofessional obligations that require her time and attentionâshe thinks itâs harder than ever to burrow into the deep space where the best song ideas live. So she set up a system: three sets of 20 cards each, one with a lyrical prompt (like âembarrass yourselfâ), one with a musical prompt (âuse a new time signatureâ), and one with inspiration (like âbreathe and relaxâ or âsee it throughâ). Then she drew one card from each deck and used the combinations as fuel for new songs.
âI think part of the problem for artists this late into their career is feeling stuck. Iâm rarely surprised anymore,â Veirs says. âIn the beginning, everything is surprising. Everything feels like a flow. But this far in, youâre like, âIâve written this sentence so many times.ââ
The key to her card system is that it creates structure in a world that feels more chaotic than ever.
âHalf the battle is [restricting yourself],â she says. âEspecially with the internet and the world so huge and wide open, how are you supposed to find anything small to write about? So if you can just get to the small thing, then you can make the small thing big.â