How Edith Frost Finishes Songs She Abandoned Twenty Years Ago

The Drag City songwriter on trash-can folders, working backwards from a phrase, and why she doesn't want to know what chord is coming next.

Edith Frost put out In Space in February 2025, her first record since 2005. She has been on Drag City since 1996, and along the way has sung on records by Jim O'Rourke, the Mekons, Songs:Ohia, Gastr del Sol and Archer Prewitt.

This is the first in a series of conversations with songwriters about how a song actually gets made. Not gear, not the industry. The part where you have a scrap and no song, and you have to do something about it.

Edith warned me up front that she is a babbler, and offered to let me pull things she had said and cobble them into what she called a faux interview. That is what this is: her own words, edited for length and order.

There is no one way in

There's no ONE way to finish a song, or start a song either. It could start from anywhere or anything, but the point is you have to work on that fragment and join it up with other fragments that may or may not seem to fit together at first.

You might start with just a phrase of words that sound cool, and you gotta work backwards to complete the "story" of how you arrived at that phrase coming outta yer mouth haha. How are you going to sing it, what's the melody like? And what chords go underneath? Does that want to be part of a verse or is it a chorus?

Or, let's say you stumbled upon a cool riff or chord progression, well again you have to try to expand on it and tickle that riff into making sense in a larger context. How will you get there?

I almost never finish a song in one sitting. I HAVE, but when I do it's like a miracle sent down from the heavens! And aren't we so very grateful when that happens, but in the real world we have to bust our butts a little more to crank out a tune.

"Hold On," and a twenty-year gap between the words and the music

All songs have to start from somewhere. Lyrics and chords, they never come out fully formed for ME, tho I hope they do for others lol.

On In Space there's a song "Hold On," the tune we used for the video. The lyrics were from a folder of words I'd never gotten around to using in a song. They were ancient. I looked at 'em for the hundredth time, and for some reason my head shifted and I was suddenly like "what the fuck, this is practically a whole SONG here! It would be soooo easy to put this to music, what the hell was stopping me?!"

And I fixed it up with chords in like an hour and it was done. And that was probably a 10 or 20 year gap between words and music haha.

"Back Again," and the problem of Etta James

Other songs have to begin with a real fragment. For "Back Again" I had that first line kickin' around my head, not really planning to do anything with THAT, because I was pretty sure somebody had already solved the question of what on earth you're supposed to say after you say "I'd rather go blind."

They had.

But I went ahead and kept coming up with line after line, just foolin' around with the idea in my head. Figuring, well, if it turns out to be the same exact solution that Etta James sang about, then I'll FIX it. It turned out my way was... not what Etta would've said heheh. Kinda the opposite, so I was good with that. :-)

It wasn't on my short-list for that album tho. I thought it was a little too normal as a song, I mean it had a normal-sounding progression. But most of the other songs weren't that straightforward, so we went ahead and recorded it, and it did sit well with the others in the end.

The trash cans

I have lots of different trash-cans, I mean folders, or places that I use to house any stalled fragments. I'll work on something until I run into a wall and it becomes frustrating to continue. Then instead of CRYing about it I'll just wrap up that idea or project and throw it someplace I can find it later.

The folders are everywhere, ugh. A notebook here with some scribbles, a folder in my Notes app, a folder on my computer labeled "Words," another one with a million subfolders on it called "Sounds I Made," maybe divided up by different instruments I used to create them. And that's just the digital stuff. There is also the PAPER.

I used to think of this as a burden, like a pile of dirty laundry. An albatross of unfinished garbage I'd never be able to sort thru.

But THEN every once in awhile I'll root thru that stuff and find something that makes me go "why the hell didn't I finish this? This is not bad, this is practically DONE, what the hell Edith?!"

So now I just think of all the fragments as source material. It no longer bothers me to leave things unfinished. Some ideas just need more time to simmer, I guess.

On templates, and knowing what chord is coming next

A lot of apps will give you examples, chord progressions you can use to start with. I get verrrry wary of using those, because I want my music to be as "original" as possible. I don't want to be using too many "templates" that would nudge me towards a more generic song.

I don't mind super simple ones, like a 12-bar blues or the jazz rhythm changes just to use as a playable demo. But I don't want any extensive library of progressions to choose from, I want to come up with that myself. But that's just me, I'm sure lots of people appreciate it for the sake of structure and having a starting point.

You can't necessarily tell something came from a template, but you can hear chords that seem very fuckin predictable and don't go anywhere else but where they are. That happens to me in grocery stores hearing random pop music of dubious quality. I start to notice the progression and how it NEVER changes and it irritates me!

I don't WANT to know what chord's coming next. Unless it's a country song, then it's fine lol. I can deal with I-IV-V-I all day long if there's the slightest hint of a twang.

What the first demo is for

If I think I need to, I'll do a super short voice-memo type recording, but usually by that time I'm on a roll already and wanting to get it outta me ASAP.

The first demo is usually extremely rough and just for the purpose of THAT: nailing down the way the words and melody and chords actually sit together. Then I actually know the song, and how I want to make the actual demo that other people might actually hear, hopefully.

Before any of this existed

In the old pre-digital days I would just keep a paper notebook for lyric and chord ideas, another one for finished lyrics and chords.

My "chord generator" was just my hand on the guitar moving up and down with a barre chord, trying to find the one that sounds coolest.

And the only way to remember a melody would be to hurry up and record the demo.

Who should more people be listening to?

People oughta be telling ME who to listen to, I'm an old fart with my head stuck up my... record collection heh.

I've always collected a variety of stuff, but especially country and rockabilly music from about the 1930s thru the 60s. But I like a ton of different bands, eras of music in different countries, and genres. I like the weird shit, and I really like the amazing female singers, especially sister acts. Check out the Boswell Sisters, the DeZurik Sisters and the Girls of the Golden West.

Fave band of all time is without a doubt The Residents. Well, and I also have more records by the Cocteau Twins than anybody really needs.

First time I became a superfan tho, was for The Carpenters. I'm glad it's no longer very embarrassing to say that.

Edith Frost's In Space is out on Drag City.