EXCLUSIVE: Rachel Baiman and Viv & Riley Cover Jason Molina's 'Hold on Magnolia' on Eclectic New Covers Album

This song should come with a warning for anyone feeling even the tiniest bit emotionally fragile right now. As the patron saint of sadness, Jason Molina's songs were always soaked in a soft, aching pain and a melancholy and longing that few songwriters are able to reach that deep for.

On their new album, kissing other ppl, Rachel Baiman and Viv & Riley reimagine his 2003 song 'Hold on Magnolia' among songs by Lennon Stella, Dr. Dog, Wilco, Joan Armatrading, Dottie West and Waylon Payne, with beautiful results.

While on tour together in 2022, Durham based folk duo Viv & Riley, and Nashville-based singer songwriter Rachel Baiman talked about the recent records that they had enjoyed. Each time one person would bring up a beloved album or song, another would chime in with enthusiastic agreement. With hours in the van to daydream, and hours on stage to enjoy harmonizing together, the three began to scheme about recording some covers together.

"We listened to a lot of music in the van,” remembers Riley Calcagno.

“We all listen to a lot of folk and country music but it started by sharing our favorite pop music that we were listening to," explains Vivian Leva. "It started as, wouldn’t that be fun if we could play a song like that together.”

In June of 2023, producer Greg Griffith invited the newly imagined trio to spend a week in Connecticut at his home and studio. The idea was to explore some cover songs and see what the sound of the project might be, with no expectation of a finished product

As the three began working out an arrangement for Lennon Stella’s 'Kissing Other People,' sitting cross legged on the floor in Griffith’s living room, Griffith stealthily placed microphones, as well as a vintage camcorder in the room. What emerged was a completely live take of the song, organic and full of magic. The recording set the tone for what followed.

“We recorded in the summer, rolled around in the grass, jumped on the trampoline, that was the spirit of how we recorded it," says Calcagno. "We weren’t thinking about anything, just playing music with friends we like to play music with."

Originally written and recorded by Jason Molina as Songs: Ohia on his 2003 masterpiece Magnolia Electric Co., 'Hold on Magnolia' is an anthem for the darkest of times. A powerful plea for resilience and perseverance, it's a song about holding on through adversity and looking towards the light.

Written as a deathbed conversation between two lovers, the song stands as a testament to the human spirit's ability to find hope even in the darkest of times.

"You might be holding the last light I see before the dark finally gets a hold of me," Calcagno sings, taking lead as Leva and Baiman harmonise softly.

“'Hold on Magnolia' is a song by the great departed songwriter Jason Molina," shares Riley Calcagno. "For me, it gets to something hard to otherwise describe about forgiveness and loss. It’s the kind of song that hits you just where you need to feel it in the moment. The scene is a bit hazy and dark (save for the big highway moon, don’t we all know it) and though the characters are unidentified, you get the feeling that this is the ultimate moment of their path together."

"We tracked this initially with Viv and I in a living room, me singing and playing the guitar, Viv on that deep snare. Rachel added a stirring fiddle part and she and Viv sang it with me," he says about the recoding. "Our producer, Greg Griffith made it sound all so rich and right. I feel a kinship with Molina cause I used to live and go to school in his home county of Lorain, Ohio, and I can easily imagine the moon looming over highway 58 between Oberlin and Lorain on the kind of night that this may or may not be drawn from."

Listen to 'Hold on Magnolia' below

kissing other ppl is released on Peacedale Records on 8 August