Opening Night

Album: Quiet Signs (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • This contemplative instrumental opens Jessica Pratt's Quiet Signs album. The spectral piano rumination is played by Jessica Pratt's musical and romantic partner, Matthew McDermott.
  • Pratt named the track after John Cassavetes' 1977 film about an aging actress who struggles to find a truthful performance. The singer attended a screening at the new Beverly cinema, an historic Courthouse theatre, in November 2016 and was deeply moved by Gene Rowlands performance as the unraveling actress Myrtle Gordon. She explained to Uncut magazine: "I had been through a very difficult time in the year prior. There were times at the end of that tour where I felt like I was losing my mind a little bit in a legitimate way. Seeing this character that is going through this drag-out bloody battle to deliver this thing, I really resonated with that desolation. For it to be the name of the first track felt right to me."

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