In These Silent Days

In These Silent Days is the seventh full-length studio album by Brandi Carlile and was released in 2021. It’s the follow up to their breakout album, By The Way, I Forgive You, and is largely written in response to Brandi Carlile’s memoir Broken Horses launched in early 2021. Like their previous album it was produced by Dave Cobb and Shooter Jennings at RCA in Nashville. It was engineered by Brandi Carlile’s ‘go-to’ engineer Brandon Bell and mastered by Pete Lyman. Several of the tracks were mixed by Tom Elmhirst at Electric Lady Studios in NYC. (Right on Time, You and Me on The Rock, Broken Horses, Letter To The Past, Mama Werewolf, When You’re Wrong and Throwing Good After Bad). It also won three Grammys in the 2023 awards.

The album was launched on October 1 2021, with it’s first single Right On Time having launched on July 21. The video for Right on Time was directed by Courtney Cox. The song received 3 Grammy nods, including Record of the year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

Right On Time was released with two more versions:
Right On Time (in Harmony) – released on August 27 – new version
Right On Time (in Symphony) recorded at Red Rocks wiht the Colorado Symphony – released on September 24 – new version
Right On Time (Canyon Haze version) was released on the delux album in October 2022. (new name – same as Harmony track)

Notes on some tracks: (click on links to deep dive further)

Right On Time was the first single and the video was created by Courtney Cox.

You and Me On the Rock – the second single with an accompanying animated video based on Brandi’s realisation during pandemic that she has built her house on a rock (her wife and children and everthing she’s built around her). The song was losely inspired by her childhood memory of a similarly titled song from bible school.

This Time Tomorrow – was the first song from the album the band performed for The BRAMILY well ahead of the album released when they gave a sneak peak during on of the BRAMILY only Quarentine Compound Shows. Brandi stated at the time it was the only song they would perform before release date.

Broken Horses – is the track based on the same name of her memoir. The song won two Grammys including Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance.

Sinners, Saints and Fools – A song parable about a ‘god-fearing man’ who rejected displaced people at the border, and found when he arrived at his heaven, he too was rejected to hell.

The following two years the album was toured extensively with nearly every track making regular appearances. The only thre which are rarely sung live are “Letter to the Past” and “Throwing Good After Bad” and “When You’re Wrong.”

Awards

The album received three Americana Music Awards nominations (Artist of the Year, Album of The Year and Song of the Year) winning the latter.

It won UK Americana Award for International song of the year for Right on Time

Right On Time received 3 Grammy nods in 2022, including Record of the year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance.

In 2023 the album was nominated for seven Grammys and won three. The nominations included Album of the Year, Best Americana Album (won), Record of the Year, Best Americana Performance, Best American Roots Song, Best Rock Performance (Broken Horses) (won), and Best Rock Song (Broken Horses) (won).

In a few interviews Brandi Carlile has referenced it as the buddy album to By The Way, I Forgive You. Here in her Stereogum interview she shares,

“I didn’t know how to lose myself in my vocal performances. I don’t know if it’s something I had unlearned or if I just didn’t know, but by the end of the record, I was feeling really opened up spiritually, and it ended on “The Joke.”

It was like, lights out, we go home after “The Joke.” And I was like, “Shit. Man, I just got there.” All the years went by, and the big things happened with “The Joke,” but I always knew in the back of my mind that I had to stop that process in the middle. So when I wrote “Right On Time,” I knew I was starting where “The Joke” left me off, and I wanted to start the album that way because that’s what felt true to me.”

https://www.stereogum.com/2162284/brandi-carlile-in-these-silent-days-song-meanings/interviews/footnotes-interview/

Lucius features on the track – You and Me on the Rock

Several colored variants of the vinyl was released including Black, Gold and Clear. There was also a very limited alt cover released, from the official store. (while advertised as an alt cover, it was actually a single piece of card, shipped with the original album).

As part of the interview rounds for promoting the album, Brandi Carlile hosted Apple Music’s Zane Lowe to her home, and in it, discusses a lot of the album tracks origins.

Track list

Full list of versions :