A Chat with Barton Hartshorn (28.11.22)
Influenced by artists like Joni Mitchell, Steely Dan and Jackson Brown, singer-songwriter Barton Hartshorn slathers the intimacy of folk across the power of rock and pop in his music. We speak with Hartshorn about his new album Manchester Sun, pet peeves, good advice and future plans.
OSR: What drew you to music?
Hartshorn: Stories. Both those told by the music itself and those within the lyrics. The idea that you can tell the simplest of tales or create a vast canvas in a 4-minute song still fascinates me. And all that can be achieved with just a pen and an instrument. No cast of thousands needed, no cameras or big budgets. You can do the same in a novel but with a song, you get the chance to create the script AND the soundtrack. The tricky part is then squashing all that down into a few minutes!
OSR: What do you hope people take from your music?
Hartshorn: Like most songwriters, I hope they’ll still be singing or whistling my tune the day after hearing it but I also hope the stories stick in the same way they would if they’d read a book or watched a film. I’d love to come up with something truly innovative or extraordinarily original but if I’m being realistic, I know that all I can hope to do is reflect the times I live in and do it in a way that comes across as personal.
OSR: What does music mean to you?
Hartshorn: Where do I start…
It follows me through the day (and night) and by that, I don’t mean in supermarkets and in phone hold music. A phrase I overhear in a cafe will arrive with a tailor-made melody, ten seconds later I’ve got the bass line, harmony part and a string part. Some days I spend more time trying to find a quiet space to sing ideas into my phone than anything else. I wake up at 3 am having just dreamt that John Mayer was singing a song on a huge floating stage. I sing it into my phone then work on it the next morning. I might have a few minutes of silence over breakfast then I go out and hear more words that are just begging to be put to music.
OSR: Does your new album Manchester Sun have a theme or backstory? What can you tell us about it?
Hartshorn: Like some of my albums, it started out not having an overriding theme but seems to have acquired one at some point during the journey. I suppose the songs just grew together. The title refers to a photo of me with my parents. We’re in a garden in the north of England. I’m probably a few weeks old and the three of us are lit by a golden evening sun. It got me thinking about the circular nature of generations and I wanted to link my own birth with that of my son, 37 years later.
OSR: If you could change anything about Manchester Sun, what would it be and why?
Hartshorn: ‘Georgetown’ would be a duet with Bruce Springsteen. He sang it to me in a dream one morning at 4:38 am and I always consider it to be his song (the royalties are mine though 🙂). Maybe he’ll sing it one day. Who knows…
OSR: How would you describe your music and Manchester Sun?
Hartshorn: My earliest influences are folk so I always drift back in that direction. That’s where the stories come from. I’m half French so the storytelling aspect also has its roots in french “chanson” where the lyrics are often more important than the music that accompanies them. But then once I’d heard the Beatles there was no way I could ignore the melodic part. I suppose my music is a fusion of the storytelling aspect of folk with the melodic turns of pop/rock.
OSR: Do you have any pet peeves?
Hartshorn: Loads, but luckily I also have a bad memory so I forget most of them by the end of the day.
OSR: If you could spend the day with any person (not necessarily a musician), who would it be and why?
Hartshorn: George Orwell. I like to think he’d have some interesting insights into our era considering he seems to have predicted large parts of it. But maybe that’s asking too much of anyone. Total incomprehension is probably what you’d get from someone you pulled out of their time and dropped into yours. I have a feeling that most of those fantasy dinner parties (where guests from history are invited) would be a disaster if any of them ever came to pass.
OSR: What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?
Hartshorn: She’s a lovely girl. You should keep her.
OSR: Do you have future plans as a musician?
Hartshorn: A duet with Bruce Springsteen? I’ll stop going on about that now 🙂
I currently have the next two and a half albums written, mapped out and ready to go, so yes, definitely! I hope that along the way they’ll take unexpected turns and develop into something other than how I’ve imagined they’ll be. My favourite albums and songs are those that surprise me.
OSR: Do you have a message for our readers?
Hartshorn: Never stop discovering new things. Apparently, the desire for new things drops off in our mid-30s and we increasingly only listen to and watch familiar things from then on. Buck the trend and keep on finding interesting things in forgotten corners.
Many thanks to Barton Hartshorn for speaking with us. For more from Barton Hartshorn check out his official website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
