Video Premiere: “Late Night Ramble” by Doug Hoekstra

Photo Credit: Devon Eloise

Doug Hoekstra is a Chicago-bred, Nashville-based creative whose poems, performances, songs, and stories, have crisscrossed the globe in publications and playlists, stages and set lists, his eight CDs and four books earning Independent Publisher Award, Pushcart Prize, Nashville Music Award, and Independent Music Award nominations, as well as a legion of friends and fans. His latest album The Day Deserved (Drop Autumn Record, U.S./ Continental Record Services, Europe), was released in April 2021 to considerable acclaim, and was immediately followed by a new book of short stories, Ten Seconds In-Between/Better than Starbucks Publications – winner of the Royal Dragonfly Award for Best Collection of Short Stories, 2021, finalist in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, 2022)

“Late Night Ramble” is a pivotal track among the ten tunes on “The Day Deserved,” Hoekstra’s first record in a decade. Throughout the album, songs stretch and flow, deviating far from the typical singer-songwriter fare, with a mix of the immediate and the orchestral, reflecting rock, folk, jazz, and reggae touches; lyrically it stands a marker of the times, disenfranchised characters inhabiting the tunes, pressing on through barriers and breaks fostered by their surroundings, winding up with “the day deserved.” “Late Night Ramble” is a key tune among these soundscapes, all cut at Howard’s Apartment Studio in East Nashville, with co-producer Dave Coleman at the helm.

Of “Late Night Ramble”, Hoekstra says: “This a late night conversation between friends, she is one of those people who takes risks, standing at the edge, in a world that doesn’t understand. She pays for it, sometimes, but that’s still where she wants to be. The song alludes to some of the things she is going through, but ultimately, for her, feeling of any kind is where it’s at, even when it’s a rough ride. The narrator is simply there to listen and try and sympathize with her point of view. Spent a lot of time working on composing the musical changes for this one, it’s subtle, but there is the verse, the b verse, the chorus, the bridge, all necessary in terms of creating the mood and building the song. It’s live really, with keyboard and clarinet added later. My son, Jude plays the clarinet, which was a great moment for me, first time he’s been on one of my tracks. Funny thing about that was I scored part of the tune and just had him improve on another part, and his ideas were probably better than mine, which just goes to show. As to the video, my good friend Pat Meusel lent his talents, filming it in a single imagistic shot, ala Orson Welles, on the streets of Pensacola, Florida.”

Website
The Day Deserved
Bandcamp