Singled Out: Rachel McIntyre Smith's The Attic
(Day in Country) Nashville-based Americana/country singer-songwriter Rachel McIntyre Smith just released her "Honeysuckle Friend Deluxe Edition" EP, and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the track "The Attic". Here is the story:
Growing older is so weird. Distant memories feel more like your imagination than something you experienced. Sometimes holding onto things is the only way to prove it actually happened.
As long as I can remember, the attic at home has been an untamable beast. Every summer break, my family would attempt to organize it to no avail. As more life events happened, boxes were brought up one at a time and left. When I would climb the stairs and assess the mess, I just thought it all needed to be thrown into a dumpster.
A few years ago, I briefly moved back home with my parents. I had one main goal: while I was there, I was going to organize the attic once and for all. For a few weeks, I would spend one hour each day with my mom sorting through things. I would get so frustrated as she slowly looked through each item in each box to decide whether to trash, donate, or keep. I just wanted to yell, "YOU DON'T NEED THIS! THROW IT AWAY. YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO LOOK AT THIS AGAIN." I was able to bite my tongue for the most part, but mom knew what I was thinking. After a few weeks and minimal progress, we opened up a box of old mail that had been sent to us in the '90s. It was mainly an assortment of Christmas cards. I was excited that this was the box she chose to sort that day, because I thought it would be easy to trash the whole box. After all, what were we possibly going to do with 30 Christmas cards from the '90s filled with pictures of babies who now had babies of their own?
I watched as my mom looked at each card and remembered the playdates, picnics, and parties with these families. I got so frustrated that I just gave up and walked downstairs. That was the last day that we worked on organizing the attic and the first day I started working on writing "The Attic."
I started to write a song about my complicated relationship with the attic that ultimately led me to realize that sometimes it's better to not unpack everything. Sometimes a Christmas card with a faded 4x6 inserted into it is the only tangible proof you have of a memory. Maybe an attic full of proof is better than feeling like you made it all up. Or maybe it's time to let it go. I'm not really sure.
The song came together fairly quickly since I had a lifetime of complicated feelings towards the attic. "The Attic," just like my goal to organize the attic, never really reaches a clear resolution. However, through writing it, I gained a lot more empathy for my mom. A full lifetime of memories is hard to pack nice and tidy into plastic bins.
Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here
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