David Franklin Courtright – “In A Garden Of Love” (Video Premiere)

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Today I’m thrilled to bring everyone the latest single and music video from singer-songwriter, David Franklin Courtright, called “In A Garden Of Love.” In this moody single/video, David cements himself as a key artist to watch through dreamy vocals paired with soothing visuals. The song comes from David’s new album, Brutal Tenderness, that releases everywhere music is sold on August 8th. If you’re enjoying the early watch, please consider supporting this talented artist here.

You describe “in a garden of love” and “my first love” as sharing a “dark, broody siblinghood.” How did writing these two songs in close emotional proximity shape the emotional arc of Brutal Tenderness, especially with their placement near the end of the album?

They both come from the same emotional space—just months after the end of a seven-year relationship, and have that hurt and urgency and sense of abandonment that I felt they would be good emotional anchors for the record and really encompass the thesis of “brutal tenderness.” “my first love” opens the album with a closing of the door to that chapter of life, and “in a garden of love” asks, “what was there to love about me / when you gave my body back to me?” They both explore the loss of self-hood and identity that happens when a long relationship ends, and try to make sense of that free-fall feeling when a relationship of such gravity and intensity ends.

The metaphor of a garden that must be tended to or risks overgrowth and decay is a powerful one. How did this idea evolve sonically and lyrically in your collaboration with Chrome Sparks, and what did his contribution bring to the track’s emotional landscape?

The song began pretty simply on a Yamaha keyboard I got at a thrift store in South Carolina for $12.75, and has been the instrument I’ve written a lot of songs on since. It was pretty bare bones when I took it to Jeremy (Chrome Sparks)’s studio in Brooklyn, and he added that incredibly catchy arpeggio that opens the song and comes back in the choruses. The lyrics were written at that point, but Jeremy took a pretty simple demo and turned it into a really fun dance track. And I love that about “garden of love,” it says a sad thing while sonically making you wanna dance, and I love when that dichotomy can exist. Robyn’s Honey was a big influence on saying something vulnerable and hurting but packaging it in a song that makes you want to dance, which in itself is a healing practice. Jeremy gave the song legs in a lot of ways, and added his signature flavor to the song in a way that doesn’t overpower the message.

You’ve described Brutal Tenderness as a kind of love poem to your younger self. In that context, how does “in a garden of love” reflect your personal evolution in being able to hold both sorrow and joy without turning away from either?

Brutal Tenderness is an album of interrelated songs, but it is also a standalone poem—the track list of the album makes a complete poem that is also an album of interconnected works, and that planning and placement was very intentional. As a poet my lyrics come from a deeply poetic place, and I wanted to cross-pollinate those mediums to make something that could be multifaceted and dynamic. I also love to give myself puzzles to solve in my work, so creating songs that make sense on their own while crafting them to exist in a larger work and be able to work line by line as a poem was a fun challenge. Sometimes you just gotta dance it out, and this song gave me a lyrical framework to express the hurt I was feeling while also providing a sonic palette that is energetic and kinetic. It’s to me a liberation of the holding back of those feelings, which is something queer kids become masters at. So the love letter to myself is really me reaching into myself and telling my inner child that, in the immortal words of Sophie, “it’s okay to cry.”

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