The Story Behind the Song: "The Water's Rising / Gwendal"

Kinnfolk
Jun 2
3 min read

"The Water's Rising / Gwendal" is a collection of firsts: the first track off Star Above the Mountain; the first single we released to promote the new album; and the first song Julie EVER wrote for Kinnfolk!

Join us as we go behind-the-scenes and explore the making of this song...

Inspiration

The idea for this song came to Julie in May 2020, after a week of heavy rain caused the Roanoke River to flood. She was amazed by the ways in which the flood transformed the landscape. Water brushing the bottoms of bridges...tree leaves barely visible above a rushing river...and the Greenway (our local walking paths) dyed brown beneath rising water.

Scroll through the gallery to see some photos she took that day! Look closely at and you’ll spot some images that inspired lyrics in the song…

The river lifted up like a lover’s palm / to the face of the bridge as it rushed along
Oh, the flowers drownin’ / streams and Greenways brownin’
Well, the water’s risin’ / dogs and ducks surprisin’
And the roads they shone like a sheet of glass / no it wasn’t too deep but too deep to pass
Water comin’ on up to your knees / and the roots and the knobs and the branches of trees

There’s one more story contained within this song. Back at the beginning of our Star Above the Mountain project—before we’d fully decided what we wanted to write about—we wandered around conducting interviews with various Roanoke citizens. We asked them about their relationship with the city, about any memorable events, etc. Several people mentioned the flood of ‘85—many of you reading this post right now probably witnessed this event.

Neither of us was around when that flood happened, but “The Water’s Rising” is our nod to that moment in Roanoke’s history. Learn more about the Flood of '85 here.

Making the Music Video

Kinnfolk's YouTube

DID YOU KNOW: "The Water's Rising / Gwendal" is officially our best-performing music video ever! The video racked up 17,000 views on YouTube in its first week, and is now sitting pretty at over 30,000 views across all platforms.

We actually filmed this video on 3 separate days, over the course of a few weeks.

We always knew we wanted to film “The Water’s Rising / Gwendal” in the rain (it IS about a flood, after all), so we had to watch the forecast and wait for the right day. Finally, in July, we found the perfect day—just grey enough to evoke a rainy atmosphere, but not so wet that our camera was in danger. So we dressed up, rushed outside, and spent the morning splashing around in puddles!

More than a few concerned citizens have asked about Julie’s drum—was it ruined by the rain? Nope! We specifically chose our synthetic-head bodhran to use in this video. The rain drops slid right off without any damage to the instrument.

Now, Josh’s octave mandolin…that’s a different story, and the reason why we went out for a 2nd day of shooting. We achieved the “rainy” look through a combination of standing in the shade and post-production color grading. (No instruments were harmed in the making of this music video.)

And the 3rd day? That was the day we filmed the Star City Céilí Band at Twin Creeks Brewpub! Several members of the band (Brandon Davis, Burt Mitchell, Tim Sauls, and Paul Brockman) performed on the official track, so we wanted to make sure we included them in the music video. Because who doesn’t enjoy a visit to a cozy pub on a rainy day?

Here’s one more fun fact…

Because “The Water’s Rising / Gwendal” was the first single off our new album, we knew we wanted to include footage of the Mill Mountain Star in the video. We visited the star on that first rainy day, which provided perfect imagery for the video. One of our favorite shots was a delightful accident—the reflection of the star in a small puddle!

And, finally, no behind the scenes blog post is complete without a blooper reel...