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This song seduced me from the very first listen, when William sent it to me on November 11th. That day is a holiday in my country, so normally we don’t work. The song arrived in my database around 8 pm, and as usual, I received a small alert on my phone to notify me. Without being able to listen to the song with all my studio equipment, and especially with a proper headset, I just read the lyrics and William’s introduction.
And it was like a click in my head. I knew I was going to have to introduce this song to you and that I was going to approve it, even though I hadn’t listened to it yet! Yes, it’s an incredible story, because I didn’t listen to the song until the next day. But no more incredible than William’s story, after all.
Indeed, he confided in us that he had moved from Tennessee to New York in 2021 to become a filmmaker. Unfortunately, he was very seriously affected by Covid and this nasty virus reached his lungs and vocal cords. The only way to recover, according to doctors: sing at least half an hour a day to recover his vocal cords. Quite a challenge for someone who didn’t sing.
And as William himself explains, in hindsight and with great humility: “Singing turned into songwriting, songwriting turned into an obsession“.
And he started writing, writing, and writing again, tons of songs. Including “Oaks” which beautifully closes his first EP “Landlocked”. We also recommend listening to the entire EP if you want to treat yourself to a magical journey into William’s universe, because all six songs are absolutely fabulous and there’s nothing to throw away!
So what struck me about “Oaks”? First of all, this incredible vocal identity! A magnificent falsetto, and a disconcerting vocal ease. For someone who almost lost their vocal cords, I find it amazing. We often say in my language “it’s a blessing in disguise”, which means that it took an unfortunate event to reveal a happier and underlying one that was unsuspected. So yes, the artist suffered, because the pandemic almost brought him to his knees, but it revealed an invaluable talent.
And then the lyrics touched me deeply because they spoke to me, first of all because I crossed my entire country in 2010 to rebuild my whole life from scratch. And then for a second reason, a little less obvious, and which might surprise William. But if you’ve read this magazine carefully, you may have noticed that between issue 1 and issue 2, something pretty incredible happened in my life: I became a father. And Oaks brings me back to my thoughts. Indeed, about the song, William confided in me:
“Oaks is about leaving home. Facing what could be at the risk of losing what once was. Tennessee to New York. Who I was for who I’m becoming.”
There you go. Now you understand. Of course, there’s the fear of losing that incredible complicity I’ve had with my girlfriend for 13 years now. And then that’s it, I’m officially no longer that eternal teenager, I’m becoming a parent. Me too, I’m trading who I was for who I’m becoming, and that can sometimes be scary. I’ve asked myself a lot of questions.
So of course, I didn’t put as much heart into it as William, who even evokes family memories from the first verse. But in any case, I really appreciated the fact that the song develops so gently, and that the artist takes his time. I’ve already told you, we live in a wonderful time for music because we can discover incredible artists (by the way, I’m here to help you with that).
But there’s a downside to that, it’s that new codes have been established, I’ve told you about it in other articles: you need a catchy chorus quickly, no intro, a song of less than 3 minutes, etc. Because people are getting used to consuming content faster and faster. The proof: most TikTok videos are less than 15 seconds long and most of them have viewing stats of less than 5 seconds!
How can you appreciate or judge content in 5 seconds? William’s song “Oaks” is over 5 minutes long. Even almost 5 minutes and 30 seconds! It has a beautiful intro, a beautiful outro, and between the two, there’s a story. Which is impossible to tell in less than 3 minutes.
Yes, sometimes, in addition to becoming a father, I feel a little like becoming an old grump who’s going to tell you “it was better before”. Yes, I love this nostalgia for the time when things were well made, and people took the time to do them well. William is one of the few artists to play in this camp, and to have kept an incredible soul. So I invite you to support him as best you can, because he deserves it.
