ALANA SILVER OPENED A PATIO DOOR AND ACCIDENTALLY WALKED INTO A NEW LIFE
She didn't originally write the first song she had ever written as a public goodbye; it was a private goodbye at first, and many years later it has become a public record of how often we find out that endings are actually not the same as how we expected them to be.
Some songs are delivered to the world with all their finery. Some songs remain hidden in a notebook awaiting the opportunity to be heard for many years.
The song titled "Patio Door" is the latter type of song.
Long before Alana Silver began to book shows throughout the Bay Area and continued her career by creating a band called Tomboy and recording in Las Vegas and Brooklyn, Alana was awake one California night with nothing but her two guitar chords and her inability to determine how she felt. Music was never on Alana's Agenda; she was actually working towards a doctorate degree, building a life around science, research, and clinical work. Songwriting was thought to be something done by other people.
Then life does what it does, and ignores the plan!
The song began amid a relationship that already felt like it was over, but neither person wanted to admit that it was true. They shared a patio in Venice Beach which became an accidental confession booth for them both. The air was heavy with heat; conversations were not. Exactly one week after the song started, she left for Texas and never had the chance to play the song for the person who inspired it.
Now, that gives "Patio Door" its own interest. It was never meant to be an opening, but rather a warning.
What followed in the next few years could easily be construed as something out of fiction. A move back to California; lots of big drama surrounding the break-up. Movers auctioning off the majority of what she had owned before the break. The unlikely freedom that is produced when everything is taken away from you anyway.
Somewhere in all this mess, music ceased to be a secret.
There was a turning point in the song when a friend, John McCann (known as Mac) heard potential within a two-chord song that was very fragile. They eventually made the two chords into a much bigger piece and included many melodies they created together during that time. They pulled lyrics of indie-folk, Americana, and story-telling from their time together in creating music. Eventually, they received a message via Instagram from producer Alexander Martella saying he was going to be in Las Vegas and out of nowhere, they would record together.
Studio RD created the complete soundscape together with Martella, and Kelly Reubens, who started the studio, has shaped the composition into this song – "Patio Door".
It's not just about the music inside the song; it's also about what is opposite at the centre of the song.
Alana Silver has experienced living with dualities and her writing reflects that experience. Certainty versus uncertainty; distance versus commitment; the process of creating something new versus grieving what became a part of you; and being one person at once – a scientist and a songwriter.
Standing in the middle of your multiple selves and realizing that both of them exist is how this song feels.
The younger writer of "Patio Door" believed she was recording her collapse; the writer who is releasing the song right now knows that she is documenting her transformation.
It is possible for a door to be both the way out as well as the way home.