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For Anna May, San Diego lends itself to discoveries
Singer-songwriter likens SoCal to a perpetually blank canvas
Like Kerouac, May headed west. Unlike Kerouac, she left the Bay Area and came here.
Like many artists, singer/songwriter Anna May had to leave home in order to find her way. Like Beat icon Jack Kerouac of On the Road fame, whom she cites as an influence (along with Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and many others), she set out from her home in the northeast and headed west. She made stops in Nashville, New Orleans, and the Bay Area, and now plucks her guitar on San Diego sands.
That nomadic spirit was perhaps also inspired by her father, who worked as a first mate on a container ship traveling the world. “My dad returned home with stories from places like Egypt and Singapore. Travel came to feel very accessible to me at a young age. My dad taught me the many benefits of carrying a wide perspective, in knowing how his travel had shaped him.”
She had trouble finding acceptance for her music, but that was elsewhere. “People get dreams and spirituality here,” she believes. “I have loved bringing my songs to California since my first move here in 2021. My songs were received in a positive way and were interpreted as I intended. I truly felt seen by people. I ran into rigid ideas about how to exist as a female artist, especially while living in New England. As my style evolved to house expansions into other genres, and as I grew personally, I was met with impassioned backlash and resistance in local communities, and therefore decided that I could better thrive elsewhere.”
Anna May: "People get dreams and spirituality here."
For May, "elsewhere" meant somewhere like San Diego, precisely because of its lack of rigid ideas. “To me,” she says, “this is a place that exists as a perpetually blank canvas. I like to be somewhere where I know that there is more for me to discover. Artistic people cannot exist in places where the limits are clearly defined, or where everything has already been uncovered. I think because Southern California is so different from anywhere that I’ve existed before, perhaps with the exception of New Orleans, it lends itself to brand new discoveries about myself. There is a permission to discover, and an invitation to find something deeper.”
May’s music can be described as whimsical tragic Americana. Folk and jazz meet '90s alternative. A Janis and Alanis lovechild. “Writing and performing on the West Coast has a magical immediacy about it,” May says. “I love poetry and literary elements and enjoy infusing that ethos into my songwriting. While my songs can be dreamy and spiritual, and open to interpretation, it is always important for me to tie loose pieces together with metaphors. I write a lot down. Upon training our minds to think about life lyrically, we give permission for inspiration to come, and we develop lyrical inventory to pull from. Things happen in a way that is spontaneous and unpredictable, so, for those who aren’t afraid of freedom, being a creative person here is an endless gift.”
The highway down which May continues to cruise isn’t all flower petals and La Jolla sunsets, however. Her single for “Elegy” is set to be released on March 13. The song, she explains, is about her crash landing into San Diego, and an ode to a relationship that began here and died almost instantly.
“Too much of the world finds itself in a place of disconnection and misunderstanding,” she says. “Something that I’ve tried to explore in music is that murky place where another no longer hears us. Making music has been an effort to understand the trauma of others, as well as my own trauma. Writing a song about loss is categorically one of the most powerful things that I ever do. It is never trivial, indulgent or cliché. But it is something brave, desperate, and healing all at the same time. It is the ultimate emotional chaos, where everything yet nothing is real, and everything is so fragile and displaced, yet tremendously in power. The song has become the urban, sun-stroked, melancholy of San Diego and so much of what I see in this beautiful place, as a backdrop for grief.”
Anna May has performed at music and arts festivals across the country, New York City music halls, and in ballrooms throughout Texas. Upon her return from an East Coast tour, she’ll be playing at Pali Wine Co. in Little Italy on March 21.
Here's something you might be interested in.
For Anna May, San Diego lends itself to discoveries
Singer-songwriter likens SoCal to a perpetually blank canvas
For Anna May, San Diego lends itself to discoveries
Singer-songwriter likens SoCal to a perpetually blank canvas
Like Kerouac, May headed west. Unlike Kerouac, she left the Bay Area and came here.
Like many artists, singer/songwriter Anna May had to leave home in order to find her way. Like Beat icon Jack Kerouac of On the Road fame, whom she cites as an influence (along with Bob Dylan, Jim Morrison, and many others), she set out from her home in the northeast and headed west. She made stops in Nashville, New Orleans, and the Bay Area, and now plucks her guitar on San Diego sands.
That nomadic spirit was perhaps also inspired by her father, who worked as a first mate on a container ship traveling the world. “My dad returned home with stories from places like Egypt and Singapore. Travel came to feel very accessible to me at a young age. My dad taught me the many benefits of carrying a wide perspective, in knowing how his travel had shaped him.”
She had trouble finding acceptance for her music, but that was elsewhere. “People get dreams and spirituality here,” she believes. “I have loved bringing my songs to California since my first move here in 2021. My songs were received in a positive way and were interpreted as I intended. I truly felt seen by people. I ran into rigid ideas about how to exist as a female artist, especially while living in New England. As my style evolved to house expansions into other genres, and as I grew personally, I was met with impassioned backlash and resistance in local communities, and therefore decided that I could better thrive elsewhere.”
Anna May: "People get dreams and spirituality here."
For May, "elsewhere" meant somewhere like San Diego, precisely because of its lack of rigid ideas. “To me,” she says, “this is a place that exists as a perpetually blank canvas. I like to be somewhere where I know that there is more for me to discover. Artistic people cannot exist in places where the limits are clearly defined, or where everything has already been uncovered. I think because Southern California is so different from anywhere that I’ve existed before, perhaps with the exception of New Orleans, it lends itself to brand new discoveries about myself. There is a permission to discover, and an invitation to find something deeper.”
May’s music can be described as whimsical tragic Americana. Folk and jazz meet '90s alternative. A Janis and Alanis lovechild. “Writing and performing on the West Coast has a magical immediacy about it,” May says. “I love poetry and literary elements and enjoy infusing that ethos into my songwriting. While my songs can be dreamy and spiritual, and open to interpretation, it is always important for me to tie loose pieces together with metaphors. I write a lot down. Upon training our minds to think about life lyrically, we give permission for inspiration to come, and we develop lyrical inventory to pull from. Things happen in a way that is spontaneous and unpredictable, so, for those who aren’t afraid of freedom, being a creative person here is an endless gift.”
The highway down which May continues to cruise isn’t all flower petals and La Jolla sunsets, however. Her single for “Elegy” is set to be released on March 13. The song, she explains, is about her crash landing into San Diego, and an ode to a relationship that began here and died almost instantly.
“Too much of the world finds itself in a place of disconnection and misunderstanding,” she says. “Something that I’ve tried to explore in music is that murky place where another no longer hears us. Making music has been an effort to understand the trauma of others, as well as my own trauma. Writing a song about loss is categorically one of the most powerful things that I ever do. It is never trivial, indulgent or cliché. But it is something brave, desperate, and healing all at the same time. It is the ultimate emotional chaos, where everything yet nothing is real, and everything is so fragile and displaced, yet tremendously in power. The song has become the urban, sun-stroked, melancholy of San Diego and so much of what I see in this beautiful place, as a backdrop for grief.”
Anna May has performed at music and arts festivals across the country, New York City music halls, and in ballrooms throughout Texas. Upon her return from an East Coast tour, she’ll be playing at Pali Wine Co. in Little Italy on March 21.
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