Track By Tracks: Carlista Garcia - A Beautiful World (2021)

1. Deep Blue Diving:

Deep Blue Diving” was written during a period of soul searching I experienced while briefly living in Nashville right before the pandemic. I spent that time getting heavily into philosophy, taking solo trips to the art movie theatre and listening to “Blood on the Tracks.” This time, as well as the lockdown period that followed it, really became the “clay in the kiln time” that transformed me into the radical optimist I am today. The romantic streak I developed in the midst of a world that begs for cynicism is the subject of this song, and inspired this entire EP.

2. My Love:

"My Love, My Love, My Love” is a song of comfort. It feels sometimes like people only respond to the problems of our world through fear and anger. What if trying to change things came from an intention of love? I pictured the people I love, and I thought, “what if I changed the world for you? What if I changed the world because I love you and you deserve the best?”

3. Half the Time:

“Half the Time” started as a poem that I never planned on forming into a song, much less releasing. But I loved the poem - I filled it with little Easter egg insights into my life, and it felt special and personal. I ended up putting it to music because I liked how the whole lyric existed in a state of duality, and I wanted to create that musically as well. The chorus of the song came from an old unreleased draft of a song I’d written called “Rattlesnake Jake”. The song’s a bit of a labyrinth - it’s about not knowing where you stand with someone because circumstances change too quickly.

4. After You’re Gone:

I wrote “After You’re Gone” about the passing of both of my grandmothers in 2020. It’s the only co-write on the EP, a collaboration with Rachel Weisbart and Patrick Oberstaedt of the Gender Gnomes. It’s about love and it’s about loss. It’s about how when we lose the ones we love, they’re never really gone, because the impact they’ve had on our lives continues to shape us forever.

5. Magnolia Tree:

I got the idea for “Magnolia Tree” while I was walking down Magnolia Boulevard in Nashville in early spring 2020. I had this foreboding feeling that something was going to happen, and everything was going to change. Even though we hadn’t yet entered the pandemic, I found myself already looking for the light at the tunnel. “Magnolia Tree” is about that light. I wrote setting the intention of brighter days ahead.

6. A Beautiful World:

I’ve always been a romantic, a rosy idealist. That mindset felt very difficult to maintain during the pandemic. I started going on daily walks through the woods near my house and built up a connection with the natural world. I would look up at the tree canopies, and leaves waving “hello,” and I would think, “the world’s not going away, look how beautiful and good it is.” This song is for romantics.