The Visionary Woman Podcast
The Visionary Woman Podcast
The Journey Home Part 2 (With Special Guest Isaac Gill)
Welcome to the second installment of our extraordinary “Journey Home” episode! I'm thrilled to be joined once again by the incredible Isaac Gill, a multifaceted producer, artist, and songwriter. In this episode, we delve even deeper into the art of crafting a captivating song that truly resonates with the hearts and minds of listeners. Join us as we share a live reaction to the recording and writing experience of my single "Home."
Together, we embark on a riveting exploration of the transformative power of music, the unifying bonds within artist communities, and the profound sense of "home" that music can evoke.Our conversation extends beyond melodies and lyrics to ponder the true essence of finding a place that you can wholeheartedly call "home" and the journey of connecting with your soul and meaningful purpose.
We'll take you on a voyage through my music creation process, highlighting the significance of authentic music rooted in personal experiences. Follow us as we recount my recording journey, tracing the song's evolution from a raw acoustic track to a polished studio recording. Our exchange concludes with a shared reflection on "Home" and an optimistic outlook on life—living authentically and cultivating meaningful connections with safe spaces and people that allow us to establish a sense of "home."
So, get ready to slip on your earphones and immerse yourself in this captivating conversation! Part two of our epic journey back to "home" awaits you. ENJOY!
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Don't put your dreams to bed. You've done that enough. Now it's time to stir them up. This is your friend and host, Kirstie Fleur, with the Visionary Woman podcast, and I love resourcing the Visionary Woman, the creative, the artist, the business owner, the risk taker, and on this show, we will talk about what it means to get out of your own way and take your dreams to the next level. Join the conversation. Hello and welcome to the Visionary Woman podcast. I'm your host, Kirstie Fleur, and we are back talking about my new single Home. So it's just released through a collective that I'm a part of, called 318 Collective, located here in Nashville, Tennessee. We're going to do a live listen to the song here here with Isaac Gill.
Isaac Gill:What's up everybody?
Kirsite Fleur :Let's check it out.
Kirstie Fleur:Coming back to home. Coming back to home.
Isaac Gill:Hot takes on the intro.
Kirsite Fleur :Okay, so I got to start with you because you know I wrote the song. I know what I'm going to say, so I'm starting with you. What's your hot takes?
Isaac Gill:All right, well, I got to play guitar on this song and but what you're hearing first is Michael Walter on keys, and I was. I told Kirstie I thought it'd be cool to do a reaction on this because Mike Walter is the man, super talented guy and from Shreveport.
Kirsite Fleur :Shreveport's in Louisiana, by the way, small town you probably didn't know so.
Isaac Gill:It's Chauncy and Kirstie lived there for a while, but you're originally from Monroe right.
Kirsite Fleur :Yes, I'm from Monroe, Louisiana.
Isaac Gill:Chauncy's Get it right.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, way smaller town.
Isaac Gill:So we've got some Louisiana on the record and Michael Walter is playing Warlitzer here. We recorded this at Welcome to 1979, a studio in the nations which is a neighborhood here in Nashville. It's in West Nashville. Ironically, all the streets are named after states, even though the neighborhood is called the nations.
Kirsite Fleur :But one of the streets is Louisiana Avenue. Just had to put that out there.
Isaac Gill:But it's not where we recorded, unfortunately that would have been crazy. But yeah, so all vibey sounds that you're hearing on this and one of the vibeous players in town, Michael Walter, on the keys.
Kirstie Fleur:All right.
Isaac Gill:So verse one tell us a little bit about where you told us already about the epic nature of how the song was written in one session and then we recorded it like the next day, but you pulled it an all nighter. But where did some of these lyrics come from for you in the first verse?
Kirsite Fleur :Okay. So I remember dinners on the table. That immediately is like the scene of my upbringing as a kid, like at my grandmother's house, dinners at the table, everybody was coming in and out of my grandmother's house because she was like her name Well, her name was LaNidia, but they called her mother, everybody called her mother, but there was just this feeling of home, like the centeredness. There's always dinner on the table, everybody's able to like break bread and have like these hard conversations Unapologetically. You see people coming in fussing about stuff, we fuss this family, but you get over it. You know what I'm saying. It's like you know, you get over it, you're back talking the next day, those type of situations. So that's like the visual or the image there of that piece.
Isaac Gill:It's hard to argue when your mouth is full of good food.
Kirsite Fleur :This is true.
Isaac Gill:What were some of the things on the table? What was in that spread?
Kirsite Fleur :Oh my gosh, it's funny. We did a show together, me and you, and you were like so was there a lot of gumbo being made at grandmother's house? There wasn't, you know a lot of dishes made with potatoes and stuff like that because of her Irish background, but gosh, I mean stuff from scratch.
Isaac Gill:No, gumbo, grandma.
Kirsite Fleur :No gumbo, grandma, just all kinds of stuff I can't even think off the top of my head.
Isaac Gill:Any pies for dessert? I'm going to get straight to dessert, Aileen.
Kirsite Fleur :Pies and chicken and just all kinds of meals and stuff like that. Not like a specific meal that I'm thinking in general, but it was just the fact that we were there at the table together. Oh, one is coming to mind right now is lots of fried fish. Yes, fried fish and salad and bread, things like that.
Isaac Gill:So yeah, that's pretty big, that's great. That's making me hungry right now.
Kirsite Fleur :Exactly me too. I would go for a fish fry right now.
Isaac Gill:We'll see you in that section. In addition to your really great lyrics, I hear the other players coming in the drums and the bass, and a cool story about that little behind the scenes thing was that we secured the other musicians for this recording like the day before.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, oh, my gosh including.
Isaac Gill:Neil and Brandon, specifically Neil and Bass Brandon on drums, and they were so gracious to jump in last second. It was through your friend. Was it Josh, JR someone?
Kirsite Fleur :Josh.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, hooked it up and introduced us to them, and the only thing I'll say about it is that the night before the recording it was me, Mike Walter, who had played together before, and then Brandon and Neil, and we're rehearsing at Diamond Sound Studio here in Nashville and I have very rough iPhone recordings of all of the demos that we were going to record six songs the next day and we have to rehearse all these songs and there's really not parts for them.
Isaac Gill:We just have to make stuff up. So we just listened through a little bit and then just ended up jamming the whole night and didn't actually rehearse the songs because there was like I think we're just going to have to fly by the seat of our pants and shout out to Jay Kale, who was the live producer on this, because Jay did the mix on this, but he also and the mastering, but he also did the live producing of it where he was talking in the microphone to us, working with Jeremy the audio engineer, Welcome to 1979. And kind of coaching us in real time. But we only did it in two takes.
Kirsite Fleur :Right, the crazy thing is well, honestly, I think the musicians must have the most fun. Because you were sending me video. He's sending us a video of you all jamming out and I'm like I am so jealous that one. I was not invited to be there.
Isaac Gill:I'm like.
Kirsite Fleur :I just want to be in the groove. I want to be in the mix which you all are like.
Isaac Gill:No, no, you're always invited. I just don't know if anybody would want to hang for that long. Well, I kind of. Even at a certain point I just started taking video because the three of them, they started talking about some gospel basis that they all knew who he was and they're like oh, do you know this one song and that one part? And then they started jamming and I was like I'm totally lost.
Kirsite Fleur :I'm lost.
Isaac Gill:And I'm like, I'm going to take video.
Kirsite Fleur :I'm just going to do video, Like what do I do with my hands? Is that how you felt? Yeah? Awesome well you know what I thought about another thing when you were talking. I thought about other food greens and cornbread. Greens and cornbread and black peas.
Isaac Gill:I don't know how I could believe the best food there.
Kirsite Fleur :But then also another part of this verse. I remember dinners on the table, hearing all the children playing. We laughed unapologetically, growing home. Never felt so far away. I lost my way home. Where's home? Another piece of this like there is this moment that kind of it's almost kind of ethereal, because this is like you look at it and the words are what they are Like. It is obvious that it's like we missed dinners at the table.
Kirsite Fleur :And this is what family was.
Kirsite Fleur :There's another piece of it like when we were writing the song, I was like me and my husband we've done so much external, like building businesses and teams and ministries, all kinds of things that we've done like you get so wrapped up in that rat race of building things and doing things and what things are supposed to be like that you lose this sense of connection with each other. And so I was very aware of that when I was writing the song too, because that was something that I felt like I was grieving. I'm grieving like us having this set space as a family where we do this and it's just us. We have our rituals, our routine, our things that we do, and then we have friends over that we're connecting with and finding ourselves, planet and national. In the middle of COVID, where a home is uprooted, what is home? And so there's like the writer is like wondering and searching, like where is home? So you can look at it from so many different perspectives. Like there's that piece where it could fit for any different perspective right there.
Isaac Gill:I love that. It's really great, yeah, and that definitely comes through. So we're going to cue it up again and listen to through the next chorus coming back to home, and then we're going to listen through the second verse kind of beginning of the bridge and then do another hot take. Ha ha ha.
Kirstie Fleur:This place I own. I'm dreaming up forever and I don't want to do this thing alone. Come and help me make this house a home. I need a shelter, a place for my soul. Where do we go? Oh, oh, oh, oh. Where do we go? Oh, oh, oh, oh.
Isaac Gill:A lot happened in there. What do you hear in that, in that section of the song?
Kirsite Fleur :Immediately, it's like it takes two to tango.
Isaac Gill:Yeah.
Kirsite Fleur :You know, like us doing the work.
Kirsite Fleur :You know, and not just you know, the work being on one person or one group, but you know this feeling of what family is, but also community in general.
Kirsite Fleur :I'm always talking about shared humanity and what that looks like, like us bringing our pieces to the table and there being more of this collaborative effort in general to build a safe place for each other, like I even think about through when they collected, and like what our hope is for the community is that it is a safe place for artists, creators, thought leaders and you know, people in this community to be able to to be themselves.
Kirsite Fleur :But then there's also again back, you know, the space of where can my soul and my, my centeredness like be at home? You know, and for me, home, like a physical home, should be a place of refuge, a place of safety, like I can come in here and I can have my hair all over my head, you know, and I can have all my issues and I can feel safe, guarded, protected. Yeah, all those things. You know I can have my meltdowns without, you know, somebody shining the light on it in front of the whole world for everyone to see. But there's this, you know, just the safety, the protection of what that is.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, do you feel like you realized that in real time while you were writing the song, or was it like these words were just kind of coming out of you and you kind of discovered the meaning as you're writing or after you even like?
Kirsite Fleur :Kind of both, like discovered as I'm writing it, but there the words or the lyrics were coming up from just the fact that this is what I was actually living, like, this is what I'm cultivating in my own life during this time frame, for years now. But like, of course, like I said, moving to Nashville, being here for three years and being like, okay, what is home, where is my centerness, where's my safety in my place, where I can just be and kind of just feeling like thrust about, but where is that centerness, you know? And in really feeling like I'm finding it, you know, and in realizing that it is a journey that you know that takes time, but anyway. So I thought about something while the song was playing.
Kirsite Fleur :I said, okay, I know, Isaac said he listened to this song in the car and it was different. It hit different for you when you listened to it in the car and I'm like was it this verse or what was it? Were you like something different?
Isaac Gill:Maybe like on release day when it came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the song just dropped, like a couple weeks ago, I feel like, and we've been listening to it a ton.
Kirsite Fleur :I know.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, and we went through like a round of, you know, mixed feedback and we did a little like audio cleanup stuff with it. But, hearing it, when it was released, it just felt like not just sentimental because of like we worked on this cool thing which there's that too but it was more than that. It was like I was hearing it and I was hearing that message and knowing you guys, knowing you, Chauncy and Knox and Eloise now, just how, yeah, like everything you just described about your journey as a family encapsulated in this represents the journey of so many families, you know, and so I thought it just was. It just hit me like, on a more profound level, I guess, okay, awesome, it's great.
Isaac Gill:Should we dive into the last part of the song? Yeah, let's do it. Cool, so good. The back half of this song is my favorite, oh really. Yeah, I love the protected, connected and known I feel like that part was really just like.
Kirsite Fleur :I mean, everything was kind of thrown in there, but definitely. This part was like thrown in there for sure, so that's cool.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, where did those words come from, like, how did those three words come together for you, protected, connected, known.
Kirsite Fleur :This was totally improv, like we were, you know, in the studio and I was there recording, and they're like we need another piece or something to go right here, and I'm like protected, connected and known a place where I feel like I'm home.
Kirstie Fleur:It's been way too long.
Isaac Gill:You're just shrugging and throwing your hands on the floor.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, they're like that's good, do it again. And I didn't remember it. I was like, oK, let me write it down. I think this was what I said. That's amazing, but yeah, that piece just came out.
Isaac Gill:So it was just totally random. Yeah, it was. I'm sorry I was random.
Kirsite Fleur :Clearly it's pointed. It goes with the rest of the song, but it was improv in that moment.
Isaac Gill:But for being random. It came from a real place. Still, it didn't just seemingly random, but probably came from all the stuff we've been talking about years of this journey. What do those words mean to you now, when you hear it back, when you think of protected, connected, known, how do those? A place where I feel like I'm home, I feel like I get that it's a little bit more straight. But where does it come from for you? Where does it feel like now?
Kirsite Fleur :I think what I'm really saying here is human flourishing. It's all about the flourishing, my flourishing as a human, our flourishing as humans. And I think it was Maslow like the hierarchy of needs, how it talks about what we need as human beings to actually feel connected to a society, what we feel to just feel connected. And these are some of the things it's so crazy but you think about in your friend groups and your circles and stuff like that. There's actually a need for us to be known. So not just showing up and you don't care about what I do, because I know sometimes people are like, oh, it doesn't matter what you do, but there is a certain level of I need you to know what I do, I need you to care. I mean, you don't have to be my super fan or anything like that, but I need you to care about what it is that I do. There's a level of knowing that needs to happen before liking can really happen. If you don't know me, I don't know how you can like me. So knowing first get to know me so that you can know if you like me. And then there is this protection that needs to happen for flourishing. So that's my thing to.
Kirsite Fleur :I'm like do I feel safe and protected in this community? It's funny earlier we talked about was it Reform and some of the pieces of that song and what I was walking through in that season. But this is kind of like a play on that now that I'm thinking about it, because the protected pieces this is how I measure environments that I will go into or not go into. Do I feel protected here? I don't care if it's a church, I don't care Whatever the environment is. Is it a neighborhood? Do I feel protected? If there's not a sense of protection there, I'm not going there, and that's going to help with my mental health and my well-being and my human flourishing. Is this a place where I can feel connected? Is this a place where I'm going to be oK, feeling known? Am I going to be able to come into this community and people are going to care about what I do, or am I going to have to keep being like, hey, this is what I do. Nobody wants to do that. But can you take interest in who I am and what I do and what I bring to the table and realizing that and studying around it?
Kirsite Fleur :After the fact, I'm like, wow, this is normal. This is just really what I'm asking for is this song, and this song is like hey, this is shared humanity. This is what we need as humans to be able to thrive. I'm not just here like the little lost puppy, like I'm lost. Where's my home? It's like no society humanity, like we all need to feel protected, we all need to feel connected and we all need to feel known in a space. So in my actual physical home, I have to feel all of these things, otherwise the connection feels lost and I start going. I'm an artist. I'm like what are we even doing here?
Kirstie Fleur:What is the meaning of marriage?
Kirsite Fleur :What is the meaning of marriage and family? Yeah, that is what I'm thinking in that moment.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, the word known really stood out to me. I said you know known, but yeah, it's one thing to be because you could feel protected and physically, so to speak, you know by whatever circumstance that you're able to afford. You know, in life you could even be connected, in the sense that you are virtually connected to people.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, on social media. You could be.
Isaac Gill:You know, you could have a work scenario where you're, you know, regularly engaging with people, but the known part to me is what stands out, because it's like you could be just a face in a crowd or feel, or have that feeling, you know, and that's where it's like the place where I feel like I'm home. Yeah, that lyric kind of joins that meaning to me. Yeah, as a listener Well, where being known is? You know that that risks vulnerability.
Isaac Gill:Absolutely risks, you know, being exposed, being embarrassed, like dealing with shame, dealing with trauma, dealing with you know your own, your own stuff, and so often we want to put our guard up and and like only show people the best parts of ourselves, the highlight reel, who you hear this all the time. But, yeah, I appreciate that you included that in the song because I think, and that you stated that the way you did, because I think that that's a part that people want to skip. It's like I want the, I want the highlights, I want the protection, I want the connectivity, I want the feeling of these things but I don't want to deal with actually being known yeah knowing someone else.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, it takes. It literally takes the ability to slow down and say I'm gonna be intentional. So it's that in the whole intentionality piece. But you know, of course, this whole loneliness epidemic that everybody is talking about all the time. That's, that's here, that we're a part of that we're in, and I feel like it's easily solved if you sit down, if you slow down, it actually care and you take the time to get to know people you know at a deep, at a core level, and people like, oh, there's so much you know.
Kirsite Fleur :I feel peace when I'm around you or I feel this or this than the other. I'm not gonna move much faster than this. This is you know, and like I like one-on-one connections and getting to talk to people. Because I want to know people, I want to know the essence of who you are, because we all carry an essence and energy of soul. I'm like I want to know who you are, you know, and not for the sake of picking you apart, but so that I can love you. Well, I mean, I don't know how I can love you if I don't, you know, I don't care to know you. It doesn't make sense.
Isaac Gill:So yeah, yeah, because to really test love, like to be unconditional of you experience that and a family you know it's, it's everything that you're talking about with when you come to the table, you kind of leave all that stuff at the door and come back to who you really are. Yeah at the end of the day.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah.
Isaac Gill:So for you, what would you hope? Obviously, we hope you listen to the song. We hope you stream the song. Yeah, please stream it on repeat.
Kirsite Fleur :When you're sleeping, you can just hit play and turn the volume down if you 318 Collective Music, Kirstie Fleur.
Isaac Gill:But for you, like, what's, what's the takeaway? What do you hope people take home with them with this song? And I mean, it's a cool story behind the song, how we recorded it. It's, it's great performance, great vocal performance on your part and thank you. I think it's, you know, sonically really awesome and there's all this kind of abstract stuff that we're talking about. But, like, where do you hope this lands for the listener and for the visionary woman?
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, and I'm always talking about this, you know, visionary women, of course, the. You know the content that we're putting out on social media and everything, and it really is like that inner voice, that beacon, and like knowing yourself, like you can't expect other people to experience you or know you if you're not connected to your soul. You know, I'm always talking about that because I feel like so many people are so heavy into you know all the spirituality, all the physical health stuff. Let's lose all the weight. Let's, you know, die our hair and die our teeth.
Isaac Gill:You know, you know.
Kirsite Fleur :And then, like I said, all the different spirituality, like let's, you know, you know, do some shrooms and lights, some incense and all the things or whatever. But what you find if you study all the religions which I have a really good time studying All the religions, it's very fun, um, but when you study all the spirituality and all the religions, you learn that so much of it is similar and that they're suffering, involved in all of it. You know, there's this level of like. You need to know yourself, you need to be connected to each other, the shared human humanity piece, and I find that people who have delved into all the things, religion or not, that you know, they do all the things and they're like, I still don't feel connected.
Kirsite Fleur :What is this? You know what? There's something that is missing and my hope is that you know. Maybe they'll hear it in this song, you know, maybe it's not even the lyrics, but maybe it is just something that is just felt. Maybe it'll like, stir an emotion or stir an action, but it'll stir people to do the internal work, because outside work is great. You know, it's really cool if you have great hair and great teeth and, um, you know all the spiritual practices and stuff to do or not do, but it really doesn't matter if you're not internally, you know, internally connected with yourself. It's that whole thing that people talk about imposter syndrome. Yeah, or that's where it comes from. It comes from, you know, you're living on the outside of yourself but you're never going inside to see who you are. So I hope that people go home.
Isaac Gill:This is turning into a therapy session for me, oh my gosh, are you crying?
Kirsite Fleur :Please cry. She's such a visionary woman I am. I try to be.
Isaac Gill:I mean I have the privilege of working with so many visionary women. My wife is an amazing visionary woman.
Kirsite Fleur :Shout out to the Goodfield and Megan Gill.
Isaac Gill:And I work with an amazing filmmaker, who, she's a documentary filmmaker and has just been like, can I say badass on this podcast, she's been a badass and just a leader in that world and it's a privilege to run with you and do music with you and I think that you model something. You model what you're talking about. And so I don't know in closing, like, is there anything that you've gleaned practically like for how to go in that inner world and asking for myself?
Kirsite Fleur :But for the visionary women out there too, yeah, the practicality of it, Um gosh, it really is so simple. Um, I say that, but it's the practices are really things like you know, I say taking a beat, like take a beat, you know, slow down and Like intentionally put time in your day to slow down. You know, some people take, like you know, one day a week they may take a break, or we take a break for the whole weekend. You know, for me I found it's like really important to have like, hey, I'm gonna take a 15 minute or I'm gonna take a 20 minute, where you know I'm decompressing the day or all the things that are happening. I don't believe it has to be one of those. Oh, I wake up every morning and every morning, you know, at 7 o'clock. You know, this is what I do, because, if you're like me, I'm an artist and rigidity just gets, you know, it gets played out real quick. I just. But I do think you know setting time for you know yourself mentally, to write out like what's happening, because the day just happens to all of us, you know, and at the end of the week you're fried and you don't know what happened.
Kirsite Fleur :Why do I feel this way? Why am I frustrated? And those are. You know, that's where you can look and say, okay, I'm not as self-aware as I could be, I need to be more self-aware. What am I feeling? Yeah, so that I'm, you know, actually I can experience other people. I can experience my kids and my wife, my husband, my friends and all those things. So that's one piece like taking, you know, taking that piece right there. And then, you know, I always am an advocate for therapy and Mental health, just because people need it. You know, and even if you feel like you're just at the Cusp of all the great things happening in your life, you can always use somebody to talk to, and somebody can, you know, be a mirror and, like you know, show you where. Hey, this piece right here, you know, if you touch this, then this will help you, you know.
Kirsite Fleur :Yeah those type of things. So there's just a few few ways, few practical ways. Also, there's a course that I teach called Finding Your Voice, where there's like a lot of practical tools in there about how to stay connected to your voice, your actual home. So there's that.
Isaac Gill:You heard it here. Of course work, that's cool. Yeah, where do we find that?
Kirsite Fleur :If you go to the ffsocialclub. co m, then you'll be able to find that course on there. "nice, cool.
Isaac Gill:Yeah, I might have to check it out for myself.
Kirsite Fleur :You could yeah.
Isaac Gill:It's such a privilege and a joy to get to be on your podcast today and interview you and get to hear more about the music and, yeah, thanks for having me on and be a part of it with you.
Kirsite Fleur :Thanks for being on. Isaac is one of my favorite people and I just have to say he was my first friend in Nashville. He was our first friend, the first cool person that we met here, so and Isaac feels like home. People can feel like home. So Isaac's one of those people who feels like home for us.
Isaac Gill:So I appreciate that mutual feelings mutual.
Kirsite Fleur :Well, thank you guys for joining us on the visionary woman podcast, where we today talked about Home, our new single that just released on Spotify, Itunes and all the places where you listen to your music. I hope you enjoy it, thanks. Thanks for listening and joining the conversation today here on the visionary woman podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to join our growing community, the ff social club, please comment, like and subscribe so that you can be updated on our upcoming episode and more happening at freedomfleur. com. To catch the latest from me and to access amazing resources for visionaries just like yourself, please visit me on the web www. kirstiefleur. com. Thanks again for hanging out with me and I'll see you next time. Until then, don't forget to be visionary.