Minnesota-based singer-songwriter Sarah Morris has turned out an impressive number of albums and original songs since at least 2011. Educated at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music and a finalist at multiple songwriting festivals, including a first-place finish at the 2018 Kerrville Folk Festival, Morris never ceases to find something new.

Morris’ latest album, Say Yes, releases Friday, Oct. 3. Crafting new songs from word prompts, Morris and her bandmates recorded this album at the storied Cannon Falls, Minnesota, production facility, Pachyderm Studios. Morris visited The Current studio to share songs from Say Yes and to chat with host Mike Pengra about the making of the album. Use the audio player above to listen to the session, and find a transcript of the conversation below.

Interview Transcript

Mike Pengra: Gorgeous song. That's Sarah Morris with a song from her brand new album. The album's called Say Yes, and the song is called "Glow." It's beautiful. Sarah Morris is in the studio with me right now. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Morris: Hi, Mike.

Mike Pengra: This is lovely. It's such a lovely song. "Where do you get that glow?"

Sarah Morris: Yeah!

Mike Pengra: It's like walking down the street and seeing somebody who's obviously in love, and just saying, "Where did this come from?" Is that where that song is ... ?

Sarah Morris: Yeah. I mean, that's in there for sure. This song came from a song prompt, as we've talked about in the past; like, I do a lot of songwriting based on word prompts. And what's special about this one, it was a birthday gift. There's a tradition now within my group of writers where we're in the off season when my birthday occurs. And so I go to our leader and I say, "Can I please, for my birthday, have a prompt?" And she's been kind enough to give me that. And so the prompt was "gravitas."

Mike Pengra: OK.

Sarah Morris: Which is a word that I don't know that I want to sing it.

Mike Pengra: Yeah, well, there's that.

Sarah Morris: But it made me think about people who you see, you know, passing by on the street, or sometimes musicians that I see have just this, like, rooted confidence about them that just kind of like, effervescent, like this glow around them. And I wrote it kind of from a place where I felt like I didn't have that glow maybe that day. And also some days, I do. 

Mike Pengra: That's a perfect place to come to it from. You see somebody else who has that glow, you could talk about it. 

Sarah Morris: Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Pengra: Beautiful song.

Sarah Morris: Thank you.

Mike Pengra: That was Holly Hanson doing the harmony vocal?

Sarah Morris: And Haley Rydell. We did them standing around one mic.

Mike Pengra: It's beautiful vocals on that, too.

Sarah Morris: Thanks.

Mike Pengra: Yeah, the album is called Say Yes. It's brand new. The album release show is coming up October 10 at the Dakota, is that right?

Sarah Morris: That's correct.

Mike Pengra: And you recorded this at Pachyderm Studios.

Sarah Morris: That was a first for me.

Mike Pengra: And how was that?

Sarah Morris: Spectacular.

Mike Pengra: In what way?

Sarah Morris: Well, you know, it's very storied. You hear a lot about how amazing it is, and so I thought probably it was too amazing for me. But then I, you know, had some encouragement from my bandmates, like, "We should go for it." And it really is spectacular in a few ways: One, you get to sleep over there, and the fortune and blessing of being able to not leave — you know, I love that I'm a mom and a musician, right? — but being able to stay in that creative space and not go home and think about packing lunches was a huge gift, right? And we have quite a few parents in our band. So, like, the nice thing, like, we are just this one item; like, one type of person for these four days. And that was just so wonderful. And also being able to say, like, "Nick, you like to work at night. So you can work at night. I like to be sleeping." You know? Everyone can kind of follow their energies and their vibes, and then additionally, it's in the woods, which I love. It's like on acres of gorgeous — there's a creek, and the studio itself has one wall that's pretty much window, and it's up high. So while you're singing or recording, you look out and you kind of feel like you're of the forest. And I'm a very big nature person; like, I'm happiest outside, right? I want to be in Ely, I want my feet barefoot on the ground  and this is about as close as you can get.

Mike Pengra: Tell me about the song "Glow." Where did it come from? How long has it been in your head?

Sarah Morris: It was a pretty immediate response to that prompt, "gravitas." I sat with that word, I said it a couple times, and then I just — I think, when it first came to me, there was that idea of someone being on a, what do you call it? Like, a red carpet, and the many flashing lights: "Where did you get that dress?" You know, like, "Tell me, tell me. How did you — tell me your secret." You know, and because there are lots of days, and like I said, I wrote it around my birthday, and I have had a tendency around my birthday to feel my age. It does mean that when I reach those days, like, I'm taking a little stock and I'm thinking about things, and sometimes it's a wistful desire for youth, you know, that creeps up, and sometimes it's a huge appreciation for the now.

Mike Pengra: I am talking with Sarah Morris today about her new record, Say Yes, which is coming out very soon. It's a gorgeous record, and that first song, I loved everything about it. We're going to do another song now that when I first heard this, I had a question mark by it, because I wasn't sure where it was, as far as my order of my favorite songs on the record, or what it was about. But now I kind of like it a lot. It's called "Truly Wild." Tell me about this song a little bit.

Sarah Morris: Yeah, "Truly Wild" was inspired by a picture prompt of, it's a picture I've learned later on. It's from the Superior Hiking Trail, and it's of this kind of decrepit bridge that's sort of twisted looking. And that made me think of, I'd been on two trips, like, right before then with my two kids; I took them each on a solo adventure. My son and I went to Miami, and we, part of that, we went to the Everglades. And my daughter and I went to the south coast of Georgia, and as part of that, we went to Cumberland Island.

Mike Pengra: And saw the ponies.

Sarah Morris: And saw the ponies, the wild ponies, right? Which they are. And also, I don't know, I was struck by how there's still, like, a lot of mechanism around. You know, even though it's like a national park or a national seashore, and they're wild, there's still quite a lot of people around there, and they can't leave the island. That, plus, when we'd been in the Everglades, there were a couple hikes where my son and I got all geared up, you know, here we are going on this hike, but the hike was a boardwalk through a path that then brought you back to the parking lot. And it was like, you're wild, but you're not wild. And so that question, which, you know, of course, has grander implications with our world and how we treat our climate. And, you know, I mean, there's lots to consider there. Yeah, that's kind of what's baked in on that one.

Mike Pengra: Wild or truly wild? Here's Sarah Morris from her latest album, Say Yes. The song is called "Truly Wild" on Radio Heartland.

Mike Pengra: Sarah Morris from her new album, Say Yes. The song is called "Truly Wild." It's gorgeous. Those harmonies, the lush string section there. Were those real strings playing?

Sarah Morris: Mostly, yeah. That's Haley [E. Rydell]. I think at the very, very beginning, [producer] Dave [Mehling] might have used some synthesizer magic, but like all the main parts that you're hearing are Haley. I love that track in that I feel like he embraced the "Truly Wild" idea. You know, it's got so much live content in there, and then he definitely stretched the boundaries a little bit. With the album in general, there was this sense that I wanted to embrace "Let's play." I mean, coming out of a year where we did these monthly residencies called "Let's Play Wednesday," I wanted that spirit to be in here; like, "We are going to record things that might never land on the radio, that no one else might like, and that is fine!" I mean, here I am talking to you about it on the radio, but let's keep that spirit, and let's just swing for the fences. Is that a sports reference that I can use, even though I would have horrible aim? But, I mean, it was that idea, so with "Truly Wild" when I heard the mix come back, I was like, "Oh, yes, this is everything," because it's Haley's harmonies where they're matching my voices. But then there's also layers of me treating my voice like strings at the end. 

Mike Pengra: I thought I heard you and somebody else singing harmony on that.

Sarah Morris: Yeah, because on Here's to You, Dave and I spent a lot of time arranging harmonies, my voice, as if they were string section, I feel like.

Mike Pengra: That was your last album.

Sarah Morris: That was the last album. And Dave's really good at walking through that. And it was such a, I don't know, for me, a thrilling creative process. And I didn't want to do that to every song, but it was fun on the songs where we did include that. And "Truly Wild" is one.

Mike Pengra: You've worked with Haley Rydell before on albums. How about the rest of the musicians? And Dave Mehling, of course, you've worked with before.

Sarah Morris: Yep.

Mike Pengra: The rest of musicians you'd worked with also?

Sarah Morris: Lars-Erik Larson has been on the last three records.

Mike Pengra: Multi-instrumentalist.

Sarah Morris: Yes.

Mike Pengra: Talented guy.

Sarah Morris: I know. Because we've also done a Christmas album, the two of us, it was just the two of us. But this was the first time I got to record with Nick Salisbury, and that was really exciting, because Nick's been playing with us ever since Andrew Forman moved to Greece, as you do sometimes.

Mike Pengra: And of course, he and Lars have played together a lot.

Sarah Morris: They play together all the time.

Mike Pengra: They already have a pocket going.

Sarah Morris: Absolutely. I mean, and that's how my band has always grown or changed shape, has been, "Hey, you, who do you want to play with?" You know, like, you just can't go wrong. If you ask someone in your band, who would they be ecstatic to get to make music with, it's gonna work out. I believe that. 

Mike Pengra: Cool.

Sarah Morris: Yeah. And so the five of us spent 2024 with a monthly residency at The White Squirrel, and the idea was that would lead us into our January recording session, which it did.

Mike Pengra: Cool.

Sarah Morris: Yeah.

Mike Pengra: I'm talking with Sarah about her new record, Say Yes. The release show is going to be Friday, October 10, at the Dakota. Some of the same musicians, I assume, on stage with you that night?

Sarah Morris: They're all gonna be there, and then Molly Maher is gonna kick off the night, which is gonna — I'm just gonna sit there in the audience with a big grin on my face.

Mike Pengra: How can you not when she's playing?

Sarah Morris: I know!

Mike Pengra: What a beautiful person.

Sarah Morris: She radiates love. And everyone around it's like, any time I see Molly perform, you just feel part of this, like, game of catch back and forth: "Love, love, love, love, hey, hey, hey!" It's good.

Mike Pengra: Speaking of love, we're gonna do one more song from the album. 

Sarah Morris: I didn't even know I was doing that!

Mike Pengra: I didn't either, it just kind of came to me. But this is a song from the album, "Love," there's two versions of it. There's the radio edit version, but we're gonna give it the full version.

Sarah Morris: Thanks, Mike!

Mike Pengra: Of the song "Love," this is by Sarah Morris. Tell us about this song, Sarah.

Sarah Morris: Yeah, "Love" was the first song I wrote in 2024. It was inspired by the word "sporadic." And I thought about some people that I love dearly, that have chased a romantic love that hasn't, you know, that has been elusive, and then people who have found that love that felt elusive, and that's where I wrote it from.

Mike Pengra: That kind of narrows it down to about everybody?

Sarah Morris: Exactly, right? But as I — and I still think about that when I sing it — but when I went to go sing it in the studio, it ended up really kind of clarifying for me, especially when I was singing the bridge, that there was a desire to leave it as a wish for my kiddos.

Mike Pengra: Yeah.

Sarah Morris: You know, because what a weird thing that, as a parent, we want our kids absolutely to fall in love, to find someone who loves them back, and to know that part and parcel with that is grief, always, you know?

Mike Pengra: It's part of the picture.

Sarah Morris: It is. So, it's funny, because I'm not much of a crier, and when we were in studio — so one of the interesting things about the recording process is Dave challenged me to sing all of my lead vocals while we were in those four days. Usually I would sit on it. Usually I would do it after, but the band was there all the time when I was recording all the vocals, and I just started crying when I sang the bridge on this song. And that's kind of when I was like, "Oh yeah, that's what the song is about."

Mike Pengra: Oh, it came to you while you're recording it, in a way.

Sarah Morris: Yeah.

Mike Pengra: Fascinating. Sarah, thank you so much for coming in.

Sarah Morris: Oh, thank you for having me.

Mike Pengra: Thank you for talking about this record. It's another great one.

Sarah Morris: Thank you for saying that.

Mike Pengra: I'm looking forward to the release show and playing these tracks on Radio Heartland.

Sarah Morris: Please do, I love Radio Heartland.

Mike Pengra: This is the song, "Love." It's by Sarah Morris, and this is Radio Heartland.

Credits

Guest – Sarah Morris
Host/Producer – Mike Pengra
Audio – Michael Osborne
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor

External Link

Sarah Morris – official site

Sarah Morris, Say Yes – Bandcamp