Rejection Letter, by Mackenzie Shivers

Rejection Letter

by Mackenzie Shivers

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small batch and limited edition! 180g vinyl in Butterscotch swirl. two colors are mixed to create a vibrant pressing; no two are exactly alike! lyrics, liner notes, and photos by Lissyelle Laricchia. signed by Mackenzie Shivers.

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Full Digital Discography

9

releases

Get all 9 Mackenzie Shivers releases available on Bandcamp and save 20%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Funeral Singer, rejection memos, Rejection Letter, Forever, Midwinter, The Unkindness, Ravens EP, Living in My Head EP, and 1 more. , and , .

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1.	Afraid 03:53	lyrics
It’s hard to picture a world Where you’re not there I call your name It hangs in the humid air Three cheers for the guardians The ones that got us here Their days are numbered Fuck it feels so unfair Life’s a morbid affair Get used to it Put your hands on my body Remind me I’m still here It’s no one’s fault It’s everyone’s crime There’s no use in hindering The hands of time Can I be afraid And still be free? I am afraid What will become of me? We all want heat But we don’t like fire What if these offenses Are secret desires? A bloody fool Is all I see Staring straight back at me Can I be afraid And still be free? I am afraid What will become of me?
2.	The Roses 03:27	lyrics
White coat of paint over row houses Covers confirmation of recent poverty Thick coat of armor I never said I was a martyr I’m running ‘round town trying to make a memory And I see roses climbing up the porches Of places that I yearn to belong You’ve got your crooked laws I’ve got mine But I’ll break them anytime To stop and smell the roses Queen of the ages Flipping through the pages Of heretics and rages Of bleeding red Castles turn to shambles Conquests to rambles Make your own money, man It won’t be enough to save But I see roses climbing up the porches Of places that I yearn to belong You’ve got your crooked laws I’ve got mine But I’ll break them anytime To stop and smell the roses And if I told you in a funny accent That I’m no good Would you believe a word? And if I promised it was not a contest Of who I loved better Would you feel assured? And I see roses climbing up the porches Of places that I yearn to belong You’ve got your crooked laws and I’ve got mine But I’ll break them anytime To stop and smell the roses
3.	Martha's Vineyard 04:14	lyrics
I’m trying to get mad But I’m afraid of anger Oh what will I do If I stop feeling sorry and blue? My thoughts are flaming red This party’s now a rager Cannot see ahead Been by myself for months and months on end Your face looks awfully nice from here I’ve got it in my memory where I can see it clear You tell me, “Martha’s Vineyard must be kinda nice around this time of year.” Seasick in a storm Yeah that would be my preference To staying lame and warm I live the same day over and over and over But your face looks awfully nice from here I’ve got in in my memory where I can see it clear You tell me, “Martha’s Vineyard must be kinda nice around this time of year.” I dream of when you sang to me about the Eastern Shore I played along until my long white fingers became sore And when we spoke of troubled times I cried there on the floor I think of when you told me that I should not get married You told me I was naughty Didn’t end it with a wink And I shouted “you’re not worthy” And you drank it like a poison Didn’t speak to me for weeks
4.	Mess 03:13	lyrics
The drinks made me bold I said “let’s do this before I get old” You cocked a smile Said “let’s talk about it when the light comes out” This desire It is deeper Than all that I hold dear You asked if I could slow down That’s the one thing that I fear I know that I can’t have it all But I make a mess better than anyone I know You put your hand on my heart Said you could feel the ticking and the tock of indecision It was dancing round and round the clock This desire It is deeper Than all I’ve held onto Can you see my sincerity in this light? It’s basically see-through I know that I can’t have it all But I make a mess better than anyone I know Freedom What is freedom? How is freedom gonna take hold of me? Freedom What is freedom to me now?
5.	Blistered Sun 01:40	lyrics
Don't touch Just talk to me Take a walk Take stock of what lies Underneath the dark night What is time? Feels different than it used to be Laugh to laugh and cry to cry You pierce me like a bullet train That we no longer ride I'll see you on the other side Pale and hot The day is shot Blistered sun Just carbon on the run Frozen seas Come for me I'll be fine Tangled in the moonshine Laugh to laugh and tear to tear Can we make it through the year? No more honey in the hive I'll see you on the other - Fight to flight and fear to fear Will never leave you for another Baby, dead or alive I'll see you where the ocean meets the sky
6.	100 Miles 04:07	lyrics
I see lightning strike they say it won’t come twice I see tears roll down as they turn to cries Hear you telling me not to feed my vices I’m a hundred miles from where I should be I see children they are locked up far from home Dirty faces, nowhere left to roam I see tired eyes that scream “what’s done is done” We’re a hundred miles from where we should be I see the writing on the wall It’s a hundred miles tall I see jezebels and pistol shells on Main Street I see shaken dreams and flying machines there too I see sinking sands and wasted lands all rotting Just a hundred miles from where I am standing I see the writing on the wall It’s a hundred miles tall What a mess we’ve made of it What a mess we’ve made…
7.	Butterscotch 03:59	lyrics
I’m so goddamn lonely I visit the corners of my mind It’s a fixer-upper; I’m a little scared of what I might find A fight from November You gave me grief for feeling guilty The rain turned to snow My urge for going growing heavy Tell me that I’m like the rest Then whisper that I’m something special No-win situation keeps me consistently judgemental Late in December a little voice of reason starts to beg The snow turned to butterscotch and stuck to old wounds inside my head Save me from myself And baby, don’t be gentle
8.	Kids 04:01	lyrics
That night at the bar on the Upper West Side We said we wanted kids What a mess we’ve made We say we don’t believe in heaven We want more of each other, more of it But what happens when we’re gone? Questions to my answers are always playing coy, boy Scratching at the back door a voice that whispered Is starting to yell a little louder now Starting to creep through my bones All these pretty people dancing around us But I want you and we want each other Isn’t that enough? Is this all that I want? Is it all of you? Is this all that I need? Fill me up with you Is this all that I want? Is it all of you? What is true and what is not? My love is real. Standing on the rooftop of that hotel You said we wouldn’t do this if there were three of us But what do cocaine and convolutions have to do with life anyways? Take my hand and I’ll help you stand Is this all that I want? Is it all of you? Is this all that I need? Fill me up with you Is this all that I want? Is it all of you? What is true and what is not? My love is real. And what do we know anyways? We’re all just pretending to be found And what do people have to say When the world is burning to the ground? Give me more of what I want. Give me all of you Give me more of what I need. Fill me up with you Give me more of what I want. I want all of you What is true and what is not? My love is real. That night at the bar on the Upper West Side We were only kids.
9.	Gold 03:20	lyrics
These days are wild and free Strange people pass by me And I’ve got nothing but time Plant a garden at my feet I will grow amongst the weeds And I never need to cry Unless you cross my mind Fade away And become somebody who needs nobody As I turn gray The color of the sky reminds me that Nothing gold was meant to stay Our city was rust and tar Be still my dying heart And you could see right through My sunny ruse Far away I’ve become somebody who needs nobody As I turn gray The color of the sky reminds me that Nothing gold was meant to stay Those days were never ours Strange nights, stranger scars But I never said goodbye
10.	Rejection Letter 04:14	lyrics
I’ve been wandering round with my nose cut off I think it was trying to spite me And I wish I wrote you a love song, but I didn’t The morning’s hazy The headline read “The Whole World is Watching You Fail!” You know I hung on every word And I really meant to write this down, but I couldn’t Call me crazy If I break my lungs and turn them into mockingbirds Would I ease up on myself? If I break my promises and make them something better Would you tell me I’ve done well? I’m hearing voices and they say, “don’t forget her” And I will do anything I’m told Another day, another doleful endeavor Got a reputation to uphold The headline left out a few minor details… If I break my lungs and turn them into fighting words Is it something I could sell? If I break my promises and make them something better Would it be good for my health? Twenty fractured ribs Okay, I guess I deserve it One more legion to dispel Twenty questions, twenty silences A rejection letter Is this how the empire fell?

about

Mackenzie Shivers was stuck on Cape Cod.

At the onset of the worldwide pandemic, Shivers, along with her husband, decamped to the Cape from their home in Queens, intent on waiting out the proverbial storm at a family friend’s vacant oceanside home. They soon realized they might be waiting a long time and, for the next three months, Shivers and her husband, along with their friend who owned the house, hunkered down far from their New York City apartments.

Inspired by the change in scenery and the serenity offered by a resort town in the offseason, songs began pouring out of Shivers. On Cape Cod, however, Shivers wasn’t armed with a piano, the instrument she’s been writing songs on for over three decades. Rather, she had brought along a nylon-stringed guitar that her father had gifted her years earlier, one his grandmother had bought for him decades before.

With the time afforded by quarantine, Shivers began digging into the heirloom guitar—which she dubbed “Murphy” after a few rounds of polishing courtesy of an old tube of Murphy’s Oil Soap—focusing on honing her playing and exploring the instrument in ways she never had before. Shivers credits the rediscovery of the instrument only partially for the deluge of songs she wrote while on Cape Cod.

In her quarantine, she shed any sort of self-imposed pressure that had always imbued her experience as a songwriter. She also began to experiment with alternate tunings, guided by online guitar tutorials that singer/songwriter Laura Marling was hosting during her own lockdown. It was this freeform approach of exploration combined with a lack of boundaries that led to a newfound sense of joy and fun in Shivers’s songcraft.

Before Shivers headed to Cape Cod, however, she had already written the thirteen songs she thought would comprise her new album. But after returning to New York in June, and armed with a batch of new songs written in the vacant Cape Cod house, her entire approach had shifted. With a focus on the new songs and an inability to safely gather people in a studio to record an album, Shivers and her producer and engineer, Kevin Salem, had to rethink their approach to recording the album.

On hearing the demos, both were convinced the album had to be recorded as soon as possible, that it was an important artistic document of this wildly unprecedented time and one that should be captured in as real of time as possible. They decided to record the album piecemeal, starting with Shivers spending a week with Salem at the Hidden Quarry studio in Boiceville, New York, recording her guitar and piano parts, along with her leading and backing vocals.

From there, Salem would welcome Shivers’s bandmates—Yuka Tadano on bass and Cody Rahn on drums—to his Distortion Tank studio in nearby Woodstock, where each would record their parts alone. During the sessions, Shivers would often follow along via FaceTime, offering notes from her home in Queens. The group also demoed string parts virtually, which were then sent to cellist Oliver Kraus, who further arranged and recorded his parts from his home in Los Angeles.

And though the chemistry of a band playing in a room together may have been lost, Shivers found herself loving the process, as it afforded her a new sense of time and space to focus on her performances in ways she’d never before experienced. Without the responsibility of having to manage the myriad functions of a band playing in a studio, Shivers found herself bound only to her performances, exploring the recording process with a newfound sense of freedom. Much like the old nylon-stringed guitar, it was wholly a new element to her process that afforded Mackenzie Shivers the ability to look deeper within herself as an artist.

It was en route back to New York City from what she thought was her final session that Shivers wrote the album’s eponymous song in her head. Back in Queens, she quickly demoed the song and immediately realized that it was the bow that her album needed to tie everything together. Initially thinking the theme of the song was a response to the rejection letter she’d received for an artistic grant application, Shivers soon realized that the song encapsulated so much more of her music, her outlook on life, and, more importantly, the state of the world at large.

In the writing and recording of Rejection Letter, due out April 2nd, Mackenzie Shivers realized that this collection of songs was her way of combating her nature as a people pleaser, as one who would rather not rock the boat. Rather, the songs that poured out of a old family guitar, on a deserted Cape Cod, in a time where the whole of civilization was ground to a halt, were Shivers’s way of taking ownership of her own voice, her ability to speak up and speak out, and to embrace a rebellious spirit that all artist have somewhere inside themselves.

credits

released April 2, 2021

Music and Lyrics by Mackenzie Shivers (BMI)
Produced by Kevin Salem and Mackenzie Shivers
Recorded and mixed by Kevin Salem
Additional recording by Mackenzie Shivers, Oliver Kraus, and Kyra Sims
String arrangements by Oliver Kraus
Mastered by Hans DeKline

Recorded at The Distortion Tank in Woodstock, NY and Hidden Quarry in Boiceville, NY
Additional recording in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA

Mackenzie Shivers: vocals, piano, keyboards, acoustic guitar
Yuka Tadano: electric bass, upright bass, synth bass
Cody Rahn: drums and percussion
Kevin Salem: electric guitar, additional keyboards, pump organ, magical sounds
Oliver Kraus: cello, viola, violin
Kyra Sims: French horn

Background vocals on “100 Miles” courtesy of Jess Clinton, M Derby, Kevin Salem, Nancy Shivers, and Sarah Wells Shivers

Orchestral soundscape on “100 Miles” courtesy of Ronny Janssen (Oslo, Norway)

Cover photo by Lissyelle Laricchia

for my family. past, present, and future.

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about

Mackenzie Shivers New York, New York

Like her influences Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos, Shivers invites you into her world and empowers your soul. Listening to her work leaves you in no doubt that you’ve entered the vibrant and imaginative world of its creator.

mackenzieshivers.com

discography

Funeral Singer

Jan 2022
rejection memos

Nov 2021
Rejection Letter

Apr 2021
Forever

May 2020
Midwinter

Nov 2019
The Unkindness

Feb 2019
Ravens EP

Oct 2017
Living in My Head EP

Sep 2016
Neverland

Oct 2014

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