Kathleen Edwards has won this year's ECHO Songwriting Prize competition for "A Soft Place to Land." The award is run by SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Musicians), and aims to honour "the most creative and artistic songs by independent songwriters in Canada over the past year."
Edwards's song, co-written with John Roderick, was one of five tracks nominated for the $5,000 prize by a panel of Canadian music journalists, broadcasters and music programmers. Dan Mangan's "Post-War Blues," John K. Samson's "When I Write My Master's Thesis," Sloan's "Unkind" and Japandroids' "The House That Heaven Built" were among the nominees this year. After 30 days of online public voting, "A Soft Place to Land" was chosen as this year's favourite.
"I'm very flattered," says Edwards, whose album Voyageur was also shortlisted for this year's Polaris Music Prize. "I actually didn't think I would win partly because a lot of the other acts had far bigger online presence than I did."
"A Soft Place to Land" was written after the singer's divorce from musician and former bandmate Colin Cripps.
"I like to think that it's a sentiment [on 'A Soft Place to Land'] that even though I think it's something I went through, it's something that a lot of people go through, which is starting over," says Edwards, of the song's resonance with voters. "Sometimes two people can't find common ground, and sometimes when you're on your own again for the first time in a while, you're looking for something to just fill in the lonely nights, or days, or the feeling of wanting to feel safe in love again."
Reflecting on that desire for safety and comfort, Edwards wrote the song thinking of a forest across the street from her parents' home in Ontario.
"There was this place where they planted tons of pine trees to reforest what was actually supposed to be a sand dune," she explains. "So when I was a kid growing up I would go across the street into this pine forest. The trees were so densely planted so no other plants could grow except these pine trees. Every year, cumulatively, all the trees lost their pine needles. It created this incredible forest blanket. This bright orange forest blanket. When you step on it, your foot sinks down half a foot because it's just all pine needles from years and years of them falling. I always just imagined running there, lying on the ground, and it being this peaceful, wonderful place."
Edwards plans to share the $5,000 prize with co-writer Roderick (the Long Winters), take her manager out for dinner and save the rest for a rainy day. As for a followup to Voyageur, Edwards says she's working on songs now and will head into the studio in November to begin recording.
"It feels nice to be in a place where I'm excited to work on new material and do something different than I did this time, and who knows what that's going to be."
Related:
Listen to Kathleen Edwards on CBC Music