Fresh Track: “Spotlight Girl,” by J. Van Cleave

October 9, 2018 Ken Templeton

“Spotlight Girl,” off J. Van Cleave’s full-length debut, Lights On, starts with these great stomp-claps before the bass drum kicks in–they fade into the background through the first verse, but get you in the groove right away.

Van Cleave had the chords and melody for the song in mind but was hitting a roadblock on lyrics. “I remembered that my uncle had sent me some old poems of his that he has written in college,” he says. “So I went back and browsed though some of them and stumbled upon Spotlight Girl. It really seemed to fit with what I was writing about at the time so I changed a few things and added some of my own lyrics to round out the song. Not only did I really like what he was talking about in the poem, I thought it was cool to use something that had been written by someone in my family years ago.”

The lyrics tell enough of a narrative to feel like you’re following a story, but as I’ve listened to it a bunch of times, I feel like the story shifts depending on where I am or what mood I’m in. That’s always a sign of good writing to me–that there’s enough room for me, the listener, to respond and react, filling in those intentional spaces. The song was recorded last winter at Great North Sound Society and features an inventive solo from Adrian Aiello (Air Traffic Controller) on guitar. J. Van Cleave is an incredible multi-instrumentalist and you can hear that musicality come through on this album, as he knows how to build a song up, break it down, and provide real tension and release. Check it out, people!