A Moment of Your Attention for Letitia VanSant and David McKinley-Ward

Letitia VanSant is a star in the Baltimore songwriting scene, and has been ever since releasing her 2018 album, Gut It to the Studs. This time, she is joined by long-standing collaborator David McKinley-Ward for her 2024 release, Eye of the Storm. This stunning collection of songs features seven originals written by the duo, alongside a handful of inspired renderings of traditional tunes.

VanSant and McKinley-Ward’s remarkable writing invites a deep connection from attentive listeners by pairing natural and personal imagery with a bold, unguarded self-awareness. Their exceptional writing is further supported by a masterful ability to write and arrange for each of their voices, both separately and in tandem. The instrumental work expertly leverages their individual guitar chops with textural additions in the form of layering complementary parts, dovetailing acoustic and electric guitars, or allowing space in the arrangement for McKinley-Ward to step forward with lead melodic interludes. This album bears all the authenticity and heart of Letitia VanSant’s previous work, but with a rich, twofold musical logic.

1. Eye of the Storm

A crisp, acoustic guitar introduces the album while a drone note subtly emerges in the bass register. Soon, another acoustic guitar joins in and VanSant’s soft and self-possessed vocals follow. As if to hint at the artistry these two are capable of, the first line of poetry resolves on the song’s leading tone, creating a beautiful and surprising major seventh chord that contrasts the mixolydian ambiance established in the intro. The calm centeredness of the song persists, even as VanSant’s vocal performance begins to open up in the song’s pre-chorus, singing “Can you tell? You beckoned me from my own shell, from drowning in the wishing well.” 

The fullest glimpse of the duo’s magic on this track is realized when McKinley-Ward enters with a vocal harmony line for the chorus, “Here it is I / in the center of the storm.” From the biblical parallels spoken by Isaiah in the presence of God in the midst of a storm at sea, to Walter de la Mare’s sparse but intense poem “Napoleon,” this ancient grammatical structure is packed with depth as the individual declares her presence. The intensity of the repeated chorus builds tremendously, like a sudden storm, thanks to the steady way that McKinley-Ward’s vocal line moves up into the fullest part of his tenor vocal range.

This six minute song is a striking composition. There’s a simplicity to the arrangement and the song itself, and yet the duo cultivate and sustain a wonderful energy across the large form, giving ample room for both guitars and both voices. The center of the song never loses its calm, even as the storm grows. An abiding cohesion is at the heart of the song, thematically:

And I know that I am but a settled stone

Resting in the depths below

And I have seen that I'm worn smooth by the flow

And I know, no matter how the winds may blow

Or burdensome the heavy load

I have seen the center still will hold

2. Old Paint

This trusty old song has been a staple in the cowboy catalogue ever since Carl Sandburg included it in his 1927 anthology American Songbag. As it is technically not an original song, we make the difficult editorial decision to forgo a more detailed write-up within this article. But, do not skip this track! It is lovely, and organically cushions the themes found across each song of Eye of the Storm.

3. When You’re Older

This song is so much better than any description of it could ever be. VanSant’s and McKinley-Ward’s writing and wit may be at their most vibrant and vulnerable here, while both guitars sing like songbirds in the morning. Their voices — oh their voices — soar as they harmonize on the refrain: “they tell you when you're older you will have this figured out.”

“When You’re Older” is a meditation on finding one’s place, finding one’s way, and finding one’s worth. The examples the verses provide are intimate and real. Each verse begins with a structural repetition: “always on the outside looking in,” then “always on the inside looking out,” and finally “always on the bottom looking up.” The repetition of the refrain gives the listener time to sit with the feelings carried by such a powerful phrase. Listen as VanSant and McKinley-Ward’s voices search for the way to relate to one another, first in unison then in effortlessly blended harmony, as they put words aside and climb upwards together. 

4. Lowlands

This traditional piece is every bit as lovely as “Old Paint” and similarly contributes beautifully to the album. In particular, each of these traditionals showcases McKinley-Ward’s lucent vocals on lead. Once again, there is more that can be said, but as it is not, strictly speaking, an original song, we will leave the reader to experience VanSant and McKinley-Ward’s unique take on this song on his or her own.

5. Believer

The beauty and stillness in this slow waltz might make it possible to miss the brilliant clarity and economy of the poetry, but “Believer” is worth a close listen. The opening lines “Rising Libra, Aquarius moon, born to the song of the crickets in June” breezily invoke cosmic destiny and the plain, visceral image of a wide-eyed newborn on a summer night. Like Shakespeare’s Cassius, the narrator ponders the influence of the stars on one’s destiny but does not bend the knee, opting to split the burden with the stars. 

Next, we see an eyelash casually cast to the wind, but not before being made to carry a humble wish: “Give me humor, give me grace.” Stanzas one and two lay the groundwork for the third stanza:

Is it falsehood, is it truth?

Is it a voice of the feeling you want inside you?

What you call a wives’ tale is wisdom at times

The flip of the coin, the roll of the dice

After “Believer” negotiates with grand external forces and takes careful responsibility with wishes, its attention turns to internal forces and the liminal space where conscious decisions must be made. What is behind or beyond what we perceive within ourselves? Can you know? Can you know every time? Not with certainty.  “Believer” is a masterclass in elegance and efficiency. 

6. Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies

The album’s sole instrumental, “Queen of the Earth, Child of the Skies” is a fiddle tune originally composed by Edden Hammonds. Hammonds was an almost legendary West Virginian fiddle player born in 1875. More information about Hammonds and this tune can be found here. VanSant and McKinley-Ward’s version is simply beautiful.

7. Crimson

There’s a gentle and vivid urgency in this song from the moment it begins. Soft, acoustic arpeggios fall under ringing harmonics as VanSant’s clear vocals cut through between the anxious chords. The narrator describes the fearful delight of spotting a cardinal’s red plumage amid the dullness of winter, trying “as hard as [she] might not to scare you away.” The natural imagery is evocative, as is the metaphorical depiction of an unexpected moment of witnessing the beauty and wildness within another person. 

These moments are rare and precious but, worst of all, fleeting. Such a connection leaves behind the feeling that somehow the observer has acted on the observed in a way that caused harm, or revealed oneself in a way that caused the observed to reject the observer. That fear finds its way into the tranquil setting of the story, and is actualized through the vibrant and untamed accompaniment in harmony with the duo’s characteristic vocal magic. 

“It's not my fault that my heart wants something so fragile and wild.” Love sometimes leaves us so few options.

8. Half-Empty Cups

“Half Empty Cups” can be interpreted from the lens of looking upon brokenness that will not heal, without a trace of scorn. We see the outline of a chronic pessimist, with endless unfinished business and unrealized healing, being content enough to “lean on your crutch” leaving “half empty cups” around, never getting to the bottom of things and never moving forward.

This is not a song about fixing things or second chances, however. By the conclusion, all has not worked out: “Said too much in a breathless rush and scared her away.” McKinley-Ward’s consummate guitar solo provides some closure, but the wound remains.

9. Tall Trees

This haunting parable ponders the frailty and fallibility of the men and women who define the worlds we grow up in. They leave us or fail us, sometimes in sudden and discomfiting ways, but always before we’re ready. What then? “We awoke to a sunlight so naked and harsh, when tall trees fall.” Perhaps it becomes an opportunity for the world to be seen better; perhaps we see ourselves better. Either way there is a hole now, a chance for some new thing to shape the environment. To that end, the duo optimistically sings:

Sometimes it scares me, that wide open sky

When tall trees fall

Then I see the saplings all reaching so high

When tall trees fall

When tall trees fall

When tall trees fall

Oh give me the strength to grow into that space

When talls tree fall

10. Ashes

“Ashes” is about lingering pain from a loss that refuses to be forgotten. That pain comes in whispers and waves, ushering in a moonless night. That darkness, however, allows faint stars to be seen. Is the narrator stuck? There’s no indecision to be found, no waffling or uncertainty: “Though I’ve scattered your ashes and you’ve returned to dust, I cannot part with your love.” Yet the song reaches for closure that isn’t quite there, trying to separate the love that was given from the now-absent giver. 

This song features a smooth, percussive guitar line that stands out stylistically among many wonderful guitar performances on this album. VanSant and McKinley-Ward’s vocals leap together on the acrobatic choruses. It is a stellar and confident closer to this lovely collection of songs.

Eye of the Storm was released in November, 2024.