Premiere: Mackenzie Shivers

The beauty of "The Canyon"

As a child, Mackenzie Shivers told her mom that she had music inside her “that needed to come out.” Her mother would check in on her at night to find her fingers playing the piano in her sleep. Shivers wrote her first song at four, and at eight she was working out movie scores on the piano.

Her Irish and Scottish heritage lend a distinctly Celtic flavor, but after earning a degree in music composition from Vanderbilt University, the South’s influence has remained: pedal steel floats beside her trademark piano.

Shivers’ sound on her upcoming album The Unkindness, is alternately robust—with horns weaving in and out of bass, drums, and organ, pounding the keys with the reckless abandon—or delicate, with two simple, ghostly vocals.

Shivers’ voice is clear and unmistakable. Using each sound to tell a story and to leave a lasting impression on listeners, she invites us into a realm where we can escape, dream, grieve, believe, and even dance.

“‘The Canyon’ breaks away from typical song structure,” Mackenzie Shivers told Elmore. “I wanted it to feel like you’re moving in a forward motion, so the chorus never actually repeats. I was visiting Colorado for the first time, driving west from Denver. I was overwhelmed by the imagery, and I wanted to let myself be swallowed up by these surroundings, to drown in their imposing beauty. It’s about wanting to lose yourself in what’s really meaningful—to find some sense among the chaos.”