Veteran singer/songwriter and storyteller Jay Nash has released “Shine,” a deeply personal song that began over ten years ago around the birth of his daughter. “Shine” premiered exclusively via The Bluegrass Situation earlier this week.
“Shine” follows the release of “Strange Illusion” earlier this year. “Strange Illusion” is a song Nash penned for his kids in an effort to provide a semblance of comfort, in turbulent and uncertain times.
STREAM/PURCHASE “STRANGE ILLUSION”
About “Shine” (words by Jay Nash):
The first two songs (‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’) from this little project came into the world just moments after my first child, my daughter, Mackenzie had arrived.
After the cacophony of activity of doctors, midwives and nurses had resolved and my wife, Rebecca had settled into a restorative, post-natal slumber, my newborn daughter and I sat quietly together in the dark. I held her, then the size of a tightly swaddled football in my arms and she lay there with eyes wide open yet serenely quiet, staring up at me.
I told her then, ‘you and I are going to have some fun together.’
I swear she seemed to truly hear me and understand me in that moment. She was so calm in that moment and her facial expression suggested profound wisdom.
After some time, I’m not sure how much exactly, Mackenzie drifted off to sleep. I was still wide awake so I picked up the nylon string guitar that I had brought along to the hospital. (It was the same one that I had bought on a whim in Paris in 2007 and that I wrote ‘Over You’ on soon thereafter...the song that changed my life and first earned me a broader audience).
In those first few blissful silent moments of being a father, the melodies, chords and themes of ‘Mack’s Lullaby’ and ‘Shine’ came to be. I recorded both raw song ideas into my iPhone before finally drifting off and joining my wife and new daughter in a deep slumber.
It took me nearly ten years to return to those ideas, partly because, as all parents know, what followed those first few calm and quiet moments of parenthood, was an all out sprint...a crash course into the massive sea change of lifestyle that comes with becoming a parent. Also - because of my anxiety and drive to provide for my, then unborn child, in the months leading up to her birth, I had written and scheduled three new albums for recording and release along with a heavy tour schedule that would push the limits of my own personal health...not to mention the strength of my wife and my relationship.
It was a busy time, to say the least. I’ve always had a hard time saying ‘no’ to things and have been consistently guilty of trying to do ‘too much.’
Anyway, ten years, a second kid, nearly a thousand tour dates and ten records later, I did finally get back around to revisiting those ideas.
