Folk Alley Sessions: Taylor Ashton performs "Pretenders" from his album, 'The Romantic.' With Kat McLevey - Bass and Steven Foster - Drums Captured live at S...
"'Pretenders" was one of the first songs I wrote for 'The Romantic', and it's a love song, maybe with a sort of modern twist of honesty. Melodically, it's influenced by "crooked" traditional old-time tunes - I'm so inspired by the way some of those old songs and fiddle tunes have secretly squirrelly musical sections -- there will be an extra beat here, or an "out" note there, but it's not there to stick out or sound weird, it's just there because that's how it goes. Traditional folk music has a way of covertly being more complex than it sounds, and I tried to emulate some of that in what's essentially a pop love song." - Taylor Ashton