Marian Runk has had a life-long fascination with storytelling. It evolved from book arts and comics to songwriting and performing. A dancer, birdwatcher, visual artist, political activist, writer, and musician; the breadth of her creativity is felt in every aspect of her music. On “Possibility” Runk reminds herself to remain open to that childlike wonder. It’s a wry old time-y song that evokes vintage good times and the exciting things we can find when we overturn forgotten stones.
“I wrote ‘Possibility’ in 2021,” Runk explians. “I’d been wanting to write a ‘jazz tune,”‘ and one day a local college radio station played a live recording of Ella Fitzgerald singing (and forgetting!) the song ‘Candy.’ The word candy began swimming around in my head, and I was in kind of a dark place, as were many of us in 2021. The lyric ‘possibility used to taste like candy’ popped into my head. It was a pretty short trip from there to a song about how the concept of ‘possibility’ can narrow with age or circumstance.”
Runk, who is now based on Chicago, is prepping her album Two Wires and a Spark. Often compared to Karen Dalton and Gillian Welch, Runk’s lyrics cover an expanse of themes, including loneliness, (mis)communication, dealing with grief, living alongside addiction, and road trips through the Rust Belt. The album is due out on September 13.
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