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Behind the Video: Stay Just A Little (Original)

Hear it on iTunes: http://bit.ly/SIPKJ8

(You can skip to 1:18 if you want to get to the song… we were just a LITTLE distracted.)

While this song is somewhat of an oldie (this video is almost 5 years old!), it has always meant a great deal to me, and even seems to be taking on new and different meanings over time. It’s my grandfather’s favorite song of mine, and somehow knowing that makes the song even more real and emotional for me when I sing it. I wrote it about the unbearable nature of losing someone you love and wanting to cling to them and the way things were for just a moment longer. At first, it was about losing love. Since then it’s come to be about losing life as well.

On a much lighter note, I kind of like my sisters–can you tell? Only my younger sister, Emi, is featured in this one, but I love spending time with them more than anything. I usually luck out once a year during the holidays when we all come home and can snag them both for a video. If you’ve seen any of the other videos with my sisters, you’ve seen that we can get very weird very quickly when we are together–and that’s with us trying to keep it low key for the camera. Sometimes we catch ourselves mid-weirdness and think about how we would have no friends if they saw how crazy we get. Anyway, my sisters are simply the best. Ever.

behind the video: use somebody – kings of leon cover

when it comes down to it, i’ll always prefer playing an original song over a cover. not because they’re better, but because they’re mine–my words, my stories, my emotions. a million people can interpret a cover but only you can write YOUR songs. it’s just more personal. that said, every now and then a cover song comes along that i just fall in love with singing. one of those being “use somebody.”

over the last 10 or so years, cover songs have been such a big part of my story. at first they helped me teach myself guitar, then they helped me fill a 2-hour coffee house set when i only had an hour’s worth of originals, then they became a hobby and a new way for me to experience music and experiment with my sound. each song is different–some are a fun challenge, finding an unexpected song and taking a totally different take on it, some are simply a way for me to pay respects to a song i love, a song that has really moved me, some are easy, some are hard, some make me want to break my guitar. (i kid, i would never intentionally inflict harm on any of my guitars, but, seriously, some do drive me a little insane.) i’m always surprised by how much a cover song can take on new life and meaning when i try to make it my own. part of that comes from having it memorized and really internalizing the song. i feel like if i’m reading lyrics off a computer screen during the video there’s no way i can be singing from a really genuine place. once i have a song memorized, i try to find how it could relate to me personally–it’s almost like i try to trick my brain into thinking it’s mine. what emotion would i bring to the song, how would i play it if i wrote it, etc. “use somebody” was a great example of this. as soon as i had it memorized and had really taken in what it meant for me, i couldn’t stop playing it. i lucked out and got it on the first take, and then sat at the top of my staircase for the next hour playing it over and over because it felt so good.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/cLFeit8uJRs

for more covers and originals, visit: http://youtube.com/kinagrannis

sunset sessions: gone

behind the video: boats and birds – gregory and the hawk cover

typical kina, sitting in a dark closet while the rest of the world is out bbqing in the sun! this video was shot 4 years ago, but weirdly enough, my history of hanging out in closets goes back to middle school. i’d loved singing all my life, but the first time an album REALLY struck me deeply was in 8th grade when I discovered a belgian band called k’s choice. “hanging out with my friends” generally meant they were in one room doing whatever you do when you’re in middle school, while i was sitting a dark closet listening to my favorite album at the time, cocoon crash. ever since, i suppose closets have held a special place in my heart.

Choose my next tutorial video!

Which song off my album Stairwells should I teach you how to play in my next tutorial video?
  
 

Win Tickets!

4 cities along the In Your Arms tour (New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA) are participating in the Follow the Jelly Bean Scavenger hunt. In each city, two city-specific websites will have info about Kina’s show as well as the jelly belly logo you see here. The first person in each market to find these websites and email KinaGrannisTour@gmail.com with the links to the posts will win one pair of meet & greet tickets to the show!

The scavenger hunts for New York and Chicago have begun! LA and SF hunts to be announced.

Click for all show details & tickets!

let it snow!

getting in the holiday spirit!

xo
kina

for all this

it has been way way way too long.

wishing you all the happiest of holidays <3

kina