Local folksinger Carla Muller’s newest single was 15 years in the making. The song Snow Came Falling was inspired by the drive home she and her husband took in a snowstorm from the Guelph hospital after the birth of their daughter Charlotte in 2007.
“It was just the kind of snow that just changes the whole landscape, like everything’s flocked in white, everything’s beautiful. The crunch of the wheels of the car in the snow … it was a great storm, but it was just so gentle. My husband’s driving with white knuckles on the steering wheel, and I just kept in the back with Charlotte and singing to her to keep her quiet, and [within half an hour] I had the whole song. I just kept singing it in the loop so I wouldn’t forget it,” Muller explained.
Muller later worked with guitarist and collaborator Sean Cunnington to compose the music for the lyrics.
“The problem I have is that I’m a songwriter who doesn’t play an instrument. So it requires almost a mind-meld of sorts,” the Woolwich based singer explained.
While Muller has continued to write music the release of the single was put on hold while she opened her business, Baby Charlotte, in 2008.
In March 2020 Cunnington was one of Ontario’s first reported COVID-19 deaths.
“I guess I always thought he’d be there. I always thought we would get them done. So we just sort of kept working on hashing out the songs and writing them with plans to put an album out some day. I wanted to have a number of other lullabies because I was going to do this on a lullaby album,” she explained.
“I thought that if I could lose him, I could lose me. I need to get these down for the people I love,” Muller added of the impetus for pushing ahead.
Muller is currently working on a five-album project with several other artists, including Scott Metcalfe, Nathan Hiltz, Ross MacIntyre and Mark Lalaman. “The in Between Project,” totaling 58 tracks, will include several songs that have special meaning to Muller and her family.
“We kind of started that with me thinking I really want to get these done, but 15 songs that are fraught with emotion do not make a great album. So I kind of had to space them out and we’ve spaced them out over five albums that will come out in the next two years,” Muller explained.
Snow Came Falling will be included on the Christmas album included in the project.
With the song Muller is hoping to have listeners take a moment and reflect on what matters most.
“When was the last time you really believed something, really believed it? It might have been a parent or grandparents or even a sibling that tricked you into believing something but you believed it with your whole heart. Can you remember that last time?” she asked.
“That’s the feeling. I want to remember that. In a lot of my music I kind of go back to my 8-year- old self, my 14-year-old self, even my 20-year-old self with new babies and now my 51 year old self. I guess you could say that my songs have a strong sense of self.”
Muller is also using the release of the song to help raise funds for the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, with 50 per cent of the proceeds from the single going towards the cause.
“They’re really having a hard time. A dollar used to buy three meals and now it buys two meals, and that’s significant. Groceries are just too expensive. We need to share the wealth that we have of food. We need to share that with our neighbours,” she said.
