Words and music have the ability to move people to tears. Everyone has that one song or that one poem that seems to speak directly to our deepest feelings and thoughts. Songwriter Tess Howat ’22 hopes to make sure others don't feel alone in their experiences while writing through her own.
Howat started listening to Coldplay and John Mayer when she was young, both playing an influential role in her life as a musician. One of Mayer's albums made her realize her love for music. “His album Live in LA was the first piece of music that I loved,” she says. She has attended many of his concerts and has enjoyed every one of his albums that he has released.
When she was around 13 years old, Howat wrote her very first song, “Pretty Little Maybe.” Her music teacher, at the time, encouraged her to get it published and copyrighted. To this day, the sheet music for this song is available online for purchase.
Howat fell in love with folk music and writes songs mainly in that genre on her guitar. Whenever she writes a song, she will show it to her twin brother, Chris Howat ’22, who will then put his own spin on it and help her complete it as a whole.
“He would add some nice riffs and complete the song,” explains Howat. Chris has been playing guitar for ten years and is currently the lead guitarist for the band 2 Percent Milk. “He can listen to a song and immediately know what key it’s in, and he can improvise an entire song,” she continues.
Her experience with poetry, on the other hand, began her senior year of high school when she took a creative writing course on it. Howat began to write free verse poems in her spare time: “the poetry that I wrote was mainly conversational — it was almost like I was talking.” Her poems, which echo songs due to their lyrical nature, are many pages long, and cover topics from friendships to relationships and family.
Poetry allows her to reflect on those around her and to show her gratitude for them. Howat hopes her audience feels something when they hear her work. A poem about her father titled “Salt” was picked as the winner for her school’s poetry contest, and when she performed it for the very first time, “everyone was sobbing, my dad was sobbing, and I was sobbing,” shares Howat.
Her ideas tend to appear out of the blue. Inspiration strikes when it wants to, and she is always ready to sing or talk into her voice memo or play the melody and tune on guitar.
As for the content of her writing, she chooses to see the silver linings in her life experiences and decides to put a new spin on the situation. “In my songs and poems, I will put a bittersweet turn on sad things that have happened to me, but I’m not one to pity myself. Music and poetry are something I use to fuel how grateful I am for everything in my life,” she says.
One of her favorite songs that she has written so far is called “Wheels,” which is about her first heartbreak and first love. “The whole foundation of the song is ‘you love me, I love you,’ but we are growing up and growing apart. Maybe one day, we’ll cross paths,” says Howat.
The metaphor of the wheel represents how they are moving in different paths, and maybe one day their romance will be rekindled.
Another reason this song is her favorite is because she knew when she finished writing “Wheels,” that it felt different. Lyrically and musically, Howat described it as her most personal and moving work yet. “The song isn’t black or white, and not a standard folk song,” Howat said. As she continues songwriting, her musical style transforms and grows through experimentation while she finds her own style in the folk music genre.
Howat views poetry and songwriting as linked, that they can be one and the same. Currently, she is working towards compiling a list of songs to professionally record, and then publish onto different platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud.
Howat wants to be able to share her poems and songs with others, so she performs at open mics, the farmers market, and coffeehouses. These places are intimate, small gatherings where she can see the audience and have the audience really see her.
“I want people to listen to the lyrics, and if it’s poetry, really listen to the words,” she says.
Music impacted her at a young age, and she hopes her songwriting can do the same for others. “If I can make music that feels like it belongs to them or is unique to them, I want that for other people. If I can do that in anyway, then it is me succeeding,” she says.
Below is an excerpt from her poem “Salt.” The poem is dedicated to her father and his love of the sea and their family.
“I’m blessed to have grown up in a home with a twin brother, and older brother, and two parents who love not only me, but each other. This piece was inspired by somebody in particular who taught me to love my family, my friends, the ocean, the 80’s, and him,”
And with September’s ocean in his eyes he
sifted far off in the waves to watch me swim for that
God damned lighthouse rotating
with dawn’s first light;
from afar prepared to feel the
ache in my limbs as I
fought softly to keep my breath above
dark water;
painted me a portrait of
sunlight and carefully hung it
around my neck before the
lighthouse of that boy
crumbled and the
sky turned
black.
I know nothing but the
night his currents whispered of
a surge of wind and rain that
came before the
tidal wave of
my mother’s love,
the way he told me
without a word
that if he survived the
coming
and going
of his first whirlwind,
I will too.
t.h.