If this is your first time listening to Mac Cornish, hearing her tell of the serendipitous circumstances by which she wrote the song ‘Wayfaring Woman’ – which she performs here for the roving documentary channel Western AF – would not stir you in the least to expect the sheer power of her voice, a captivating instrument which is deep and velvety with a fine trill at the tail. It combines the tonal richness of Patsy Cline with more of a lilting or warbling quality and the range of Linda Ronstadt from breathily soft intimacies to the clarion urgency of her highs, or in more contemporary terms something of the spartan atmosphere and steely self-reliance of Kassi Valazza with the torchlight drama of Neko Case.
Mac Cornish says that she conceived of ‘Wayfaring Woman’ during what she describes as a ‘dyslexic moment’ as she searched her computer for a particular tune. The song she was seeking was ‘Cactus Woman’ which appears to be a lovely piece of gilded seventies country with wriggling flamenco airs by the singer and guitarist Bob Bakert, a find on the Wayfaring Strangers compilation Cosmic American Music: Motel California which was released by Numero Group in the fall of 2024.
Muddling a couple of the terms, she typed in ‘Wayfaring Woman’ and realised she had a song title with the lyrics emerging as a letter to herself, the Nashville resident who grew up in the shadow of the Santa Cruz mountains explaining that ‘Often sometimes when you don’t think you’re writing something for yourself, you go back and look at it and you’re like, yeah that was about me’.
Turning the tables, ‘Wayfaring Woman’ tells of a troubadour in waiting, a hard-drinking and heartbroken woman who is encouraged to head home and turn her tears into song. Evoking something of the Appalachian tradition like ‘On Top of Old Smokey’ and other folk tunes which comment on the placing of affections and the untrustworthiness of the gruffer sex, the singer assures ‘It’s alright to cry / A man’s love is fickle like the tide’ before adding ‘Even in your lows / You can always go home’. Still as this downtrodden figure – billed as a ‘blue-eyed darling’ and ‘sad-eyed lady’ – flits through bars and dance halls struggling to snuff out sentiments of her former flame, the song ends on a note of indeterminacy as Mac Cornish wonders ‘Where is your home now / Is it a motel in a roadside town?’
‘Wayfaring Woman’ was released at the beginning of May as the first single from Mac’s second studio album, which is scheduled to land on 25 September. In this rendition the song carries a clopping percussive rhythm and is clad in woozy strings, while the music video shows the singer herself leaving home and checking into a cheap motel after one last argument. Amid the florid wallpaper and dull amber lights, writing spurts are interrupted by the spectre of her ex and her bottle of Smirnoff vodka soon runs dry. The video was directed by Janaya Pardo and Colin Bushart plays the irksome partner while Mac credits Jackson Tennyson for lending his 1975 Pontiac Grand Ville.