Like many aspiring creatives,
Mitch Bradford was California dreaming while living clear on the other side of the United States. Not as much business as usual is the fact that Bradford made a hop, skip, and a jump away from the technological world, leaving a position at Google to pursue music full-time in the golden state. Taking a page from the likes of Neil Young and Joni Mitchell as his early inspirations, the Texas native has now developed a style all his own. Now, Bradford is teaming up with producer Matt Ross-Sprang (Jason Isbell, Zac Brown) to bring listeners a warm musical embrace in the form of his debut album, Love is Kind.
Bradford is now sharing the album’s titular track with PopMatters readers. He tells us, “I feel that ‘Love Is Kind’ is about the joy of romance and love. And to keep reminding myself why I’m in a relationship. To keep learning and to remember that ‘love is kind.’ That’s what I take away from it.”
On the song’s development, Bradford states, “I was sitting in my small studio apartment in Venice, and the song came to me. The lyrics. The melody. It felt right. I wrote the three verses and main structure of the song quickly, but the bridge wasn’t working.”
“I felt a bridge should happen after the second verse, but I couldn’t get the melody and the lyrics to fit together. And I remember not wanting to give up. Sometimes if you give up in the middle of writing song, it’s hard to re-approach. You try to start writing it again, and nothing works. You’ve lost your connection to the song. I knew I was going to chase the song down until it was finished.”
“And then, I started running. Down Pacific Avenue in Venice, CA. Down the sidewalk. I was humming the bridge in my head and chasing the song down. I’m sure people thought I was crazy. But after about ten minutes of running, I had a bridge. The song all came together.”
In particular, the artist wants us to focus on the bridge that was a bit of a process to put together: “This old world won’t last. / Don’t pay attention at all / I know a place we can go, maybe watch it fall / I get up in the morning / I’m here when you call / Won’t you bring me in tight? Won’t you hold me close now?”