If ever there were a band whose sound was at odds with the present moment’s content-ization of art and need for constant stimulation, it’s the bicoastal-by-way-of-Midwest folk-rock ensemble Bonny Doon. Since their 2017 self-titled debut, the band has specialized in the vein of neo-takin’-her-easy Americana originally pioneered by The Band, capitalizing on that approach with the following year’s breakout LP Longwave and carrying on that mission as the backing musicians for Katie Crutchfield’s 2020 Waxahatchee album Saint Cloud and its (belated) tour.
Which is to say that their lack of studio material over the past five years can be chalked up to more than just a busy period of collaboration and a general accumulation of tribulations life has thrown their way—it’s embedded in their DNA as musicians to rely on the type of patience that makes their third record Let There Be Music the type of release that won’t be forgotten after one cursory release-day stream on Spotify. It’s vinyl music, to be sure—thoughtful, thought-provoking, and deeply intentional.
“A lot of times, we’ll carry a song around for years and just let it unfold at its own speed,” Bonny Doon’s Bobby Colombo shares with us right off the bat as he and bandmate Bill Lennox take us track by track through the new record. Rather than taking that time to hone technical details or layer obscure instrumental tracks, this time is spent injecting the music with unique ideas—recycling high school French lessons, for example—or finding the perfect words to intone with just a bit of David Berman’s cool, matter-of-fact delivery, interweaving with those of Crutchfield’s backing guest vox across the LP.
You can stream the record in full below, and read on for Colombo and Lennox’s thoughts on each track.
1. “San Francisco”
Bobby: A lot of times, we’ll carry a song around for years and just let it unfold at its own speed. This was one of the first ideas for this record and the long journey of it kind of defined the era. Bill came up with the initial melody and a couple lines for it after we did a short residency in the Bay Area. Then I moved to the Bay and picked up the baton and it became about my experience living in rural California, leaving Detroit, and observing change in San Francisco from nearby. It took us two years to write, and in that time we wrote a lot of the rest of the record but we always came back to this one. Seven friends play or sing on this track and bring so much to help it crescendo in a way that I love.
2. “Naturally”
Bill: I think I wrote the chorus to this song in 2018 and knew I had something that I liked, but didn’t get around to working on it until 2019 when we started putting songs together for the record. We recorded a slower, longer, more ballad-forward version of it when we were making demos before getting into the studio. At the studio we decided we wanted it to be a simpler, more straightforward song. We made a little drum machine loop that we liked and then Jake went and played it on the kit. The groove really got us excited and we went from there. It’s a song about cherishing what you have and looking forward to the future.
Bobby: When we sent ANTI- a bunch of demos, Andy, who heads the label, talked about this one jumping out to him, which surprised me. The original version was stoned and slow and took two minutes before the words started. But he mentioned liking the chorus. That was the thing that got me thinking that maybe we should do it another way to not bury the chorus so deep. The French lyrics were a really last minute decision out of dissatisfaction with the original second verse. I took French in high school and this is the only time I’ve ever put that to good use.
3. “Crooked Creek”
Bobby: This one was just a writing exercise Bill and I started one day. I liked the freedom of it, so I would occasionally return to it and add lines—but we never planned on recording it. We’d never played it, we were just fooling around at the end of the night one night and did a very impromptu version of it. Jake did that primitive beat and that, with the piano melody, gave it a life we didn’t expect it to have. We did versions with both Bill and I singing but Bill’s voice was way better for the tone of it. The entire song was a pleasant surprise. Those are the best moments of recording.
4. “Let There Be Music”
Bobby: Bill had come to California to visit me and work on writing, but had gotten really sick with the flu, so he was just lying in bed. I was in the next room messing around with a piano working this melody out. It caught his ear so he got up and came in and we wrote the song and recorded a little demo in 20 minutes and then he went back to bed for a couple days.
It’s really simple, but a lot of times the simplicity of something is what grabs us. If it feels somehow familiar enough to where you think it might already exist, but you’re pretty sure it doesn’t, we like that quality. We invited our friend Michael Malis, a fixture on the Detroit jazz and avant-garde scenes, to play on it. It was our first time playing with a key player in the studio and we’ve probably never had more fun tracking than we did with this one, getting to see Michael bring the idea to life.
5. “Maybe Today”
Bobby: I never really sit down and write a complete song with multiple parts in one sitting anymore, but that’s how this one happened. Kyle Forester played the piano and did the piano arrangement with John Andrews, and it’s just perfect. We felt the keys on this song are so graceful, we didn’t want to mess with it by adding electric guitar.
6. “You Can’t Stay the Same”
Bobby: This was the last song written of the bunch. It was the only one written during the pandemic, and the only one to contain a reference to it. Originally I sang it with Katie, but our voices were too similar so Bill sang it with her. Their voices sound so natural together. It’s funny to be doing vocals in the studio with Katie. We’ll be laboring over ours and do it 15 times and she’s pretty much one-and-done—maybe twice, just in case. Kyle Forester again plays piano on it and nails the mood. I love the interplay with Bill’s guitar.
7. “Roxanne”
Bill: I originally wrote this song in 2010, believe it or not. It was lost to the sands of time until about 2016 when we played it at a few shows. I’m happy it made it on the record because I’ve always liked it, but didn’t think that highly of it until we gave it that big chorus at the end. Now I love it. I wrote it about a friend who I lost touch with and it’s just about missing someone but coming to terms with the fact that you aren’t close anymore.
8. “On My Mind”
Bobby: When we were writing this record I would sometimes go on my favorite hike and sit on this beach and make a day of it with my notebook. One day I got too high and mostly spent it pacing around and talking at crows. I only wrote one thing down: “People on my mind. Some are passing through, some reside.” I didn’t think anything of it and then forgot about it. But months later I found it and it fit really well with this song we’d demoed but had no words for.
9. “Fine Afternoon”
Bobby: This felt to me like a song that could be on our first album, so I was trying to revisit that kind of writing but expand on it. We had a lot of fun with the writing and I think that comes through.
10. “Famous Piano”
Bill: I, for some reason, was trying to write melodies that had kind of a renaissance fair energy at the time that I wrote this. It felt like a weird choice to have an instrumental chorus, but the piano melody holds it down and I like that. I’d wanted this to be the last song on the album since we wrote it—the song builds into guitars soaring and vibraphones chiming (care of our friend Andrew Maguire), and it feels like a nice climax for the record.
