After his world tour was canceled in early-2020, Ron Pope passed three hundred afternoons at his living room piano, tinkering quietly as his daughter napped. He took to being a stay-at-home dad more naturally than anyone imagined he could, feeding ducks, singing countless duets of You Are My Sunshine with his three year old, and only writing songs for the joy he derived from it. Creating without agenda was freeing for Pope; after a lifetime on the write-record-tour-repeat treadmill of a working musician, he found it liberating to make music without any concern for schedule, genre or expectations. The resulting music is rife with Pope’s trademark heartfelt lyrics and feels like the older, wiser brother of his 2008 debut, Daylight. The love that a younger Ron Pope prayed for on his ubiquitous calling-card A Drop In The Ocean comes to fruition all these years later on songs like Love Is A Thing You Do and The Good Old Days. 

As you might’ve expected, many songwriters stumbled bleary-eyed out of the pandemic with a pile of tunes about desperation and hopelessness. Pope, however, found quiet solace in the warm embrace of a home life that his tireless touring schedule had never allowed him to fully experience before, and in turn, he churned out an album’s worth of delicate, expertly crafted songs about lasting love, the joys of parenthood, and living with gratitude. To some, quiet ballads are synonymous with Pope’s name. Personally, he struggled with that notion and hated to pigeonhole himself, chasing a variety of muses through the past decade, from art-rock noise to Southern soul rave-ups. With an abundance of time to reflect, Pope circled back to how his solo career began - simple, honest, lived-in lyrics and melodies that take up residence inside your brain and refuse to be evicted. To listen to these recordings as he intended, close your eyes and pretend you’re sitting right there in his living room as the piano comes to life for an audience of one. Please remember to be quiet; the baby’s asleep in the next room.