On September 2, I’m releasing a song called “The Trouble With Boxes.”

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jeska3/the-trouble-with-boxes?ref=release

But this song didn’t come to me recently.

It has been following me around for years.

Sara

Sara Hickman handed “The Trouble With Boxes” to me personally when she was acting as my mentor. I still consider her one, even though life has been demanding lately and I haven’t gotten to spend nearly as much time with her as I would like.

Sara is an icon to me. I love her. 

Obviously, I admire her as a songwriter. But I may admire her even more as a human being.

She has spent so much of her life loving people, helping people and using whatever platform she has to make things a little better for somebody else.

And then there’s the way she writes.

Sara writes cinematically and emotionally. She seems remarkably unafraid to walk straight toward the demons songwriters sometimes have to face if we’re actually going to tell the truth.

She is a true craftsman.

She is also one of the women who helped pave a road through this industry for the rest of us to walk on. She was named the Official Texas State Musician in 2010, has released more than 20 albums, and has spent decades using her music and art to support people and organizations she believes in.

So when someone like that hands you a song, you listen.

And I did.

The Trouble With Boxes

The song connected with me immediately because I have spent so much of my life feeling like someone was trying to put me into a box.

Be this.

Don’t be that.

Sing this kind of music.

Act this way.

Look this way.

Stay in the lane people understand you in.

Boxes.

And the funny/not-so-funny thing about “The Trouble With Boxes” is that eventually the metaphor stops being a metaphor.

There is one box none of us gets to negotiate with.

I’ve had cancer several times. I know firsthand how quickly your health can change and how suddenly the idea that we have unlimited time can disappear.

That probably sounds dark.

It is dark.

It is also true.

And strangely, I don’t think that truth makes me want to think about dying.

It makes me want to fucking dance.

I want to make things. I want to sing things. I want to paint things. I want to love people. I want to make terrible decisions occasionally and hopefully some spectacular ones. I want to change my mind. I want to try things I’m not supposed to be good at.

I want to live my life while I have one.

Maybe that’s what this song has always meant to me.

A Song That Refused to Stay Finished

“The Trouble With Boxes” has actually been recorded more than once, in more than one studio, over several years. Sara’s original is titled “Trouble With Boxes” and I insist you listen to it. I have recorded this song about 5 times in studios thinking I would release it….

That sentence makes the process sound much more romantic than it has been.

Honestly, trying to finish and release the songs I’ve been working on for the album has been heartbreaking at times. It has also been a tremendous source of anxiety.

I have recorded music I love and then hit the enormous wall between recorded and finished.

Mixing costs money.

Mastering costs money.

Releasing music costs money.

And somewhere along the way, I found myself sitting on songs instead of allowing anyone to hear them.

A few years ago, I worked with AJ Vallejo in his studio on “The Trouble With Boxes,” and he helped me hear possibilities in the song I hadn’t heard before.

We explored different vocal approaches and rearranged parts of Sara’s original version while still respecting the incredible song underneath it.

And if you listen to mine, I really hope you’ll also listen to Sara’s original recording. When I played it for Sara SHE LOVED IT! Then it sat for years unreleased…. Go listen to Sara’s!

Please do, actually.

Part of the beauty of songwriting is hearing what can happen when the same words and melody pass through different people, different voices and different lives.

Sara gave me something extraordinary when she trusted me with this song.

Why Release It Now?

There is a very practical answer.

This recording is mixed.

It is mastered.

It is ready.

And I need to start letting my music out of the damn box.

There is also a strange problem that happens when an artist changes.

If you search my name right now, much of the music you’ll find represents an earlier version of me. There is a lot of folk music attached to my name, my ex husband’s name  MOSTLY and while I am incredibly proud of where I have been, it doesn’t accurately represent the music I am making today.

That matters.

When I apply for festivals, shows, grants and opportunities, people search for me.

They press play.

And I need what they hear to begin sounding like who I am now. Amerikinda Swamp Rock. 

So instead of waiting until I can afford to perfectly finish an entire album, I’m going to start opening the boxes one at a time.

This is one of them.

September 2

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/jeska3/the-trouble-with-boxes?ref=release

I don’t have some giant expectation for what happens when “The Trouble With Boxes” comes out.

The economics of being an independent musician are pretty ridiculous when you think about them.

Musicians pay to write, rehearse, record, mix, master, distribute and promote music…

and then the general population gets to listen to it basically for free.

So honestly?

I hope you do.

Listen to it.

Turn it up.

Send it to somebody.

Then go find Sara Hickman’s original and listen to hers, too.

Hear what she wrote.

Hear what I heard in it.

Hear what changed when that song traveled from one Texas female songwriter to another.

And while you’re there, spend a little time getting to know Sara beyond this song. Listen to her music. Read about her work. Visit her shop. Support an artist who has spent an extraordinary amount of her own life supporting other people.

Because women who paved roads for the rest of us deserve flowers while they can still smell them.

And if my little version of this extraordinary song moves the ticker even one tiny click forward for a female musician in Texas, I’ll take it.

Because eventually, we all know how this ends.

There’s a box waiting somewhere at the end of the story.

Until then?

I’m going to fucking dance.

“The Trouble With Boxes” by JESKA, written by Sara Hickman, will be available on all streaming platforms September 2.

Listen to & Support Sara Hickman

Listen to Sara’s original recording of “Trouble With Boxes” and then go down the Sara Hickman rabbit hole. There’s a lot down there worth finding.

Sara’s original recording:
Listen to “Trouble With Boxes” on Apple Music⁠

Sara Hickman:
Official Website⁠
Instagram @sarasings⁠
Facebook⁠
Sara’s Bandcamp Shop: Music, Books & Merch⁠

Oh yea… playing September 12th at Meridian Buda 👀 https://www.facebook.com/share/1EKvb3LZjW/?mibextid=wwXIfr