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A lot of the songs on Kat Edmonson's new album, Way Down Low, have a timeless sound, due in part to her own timeless-sounding voice. But she isn't above revealing her influences: The song "Champagne," she admits, was crafted with a particular American songsmith in mind.
"I was trying to write a song like Cole Porter," Edmonson tells NPR's Melissa Block. "Me and a million other people are trying to write a song like Cole Porter."
A Texas native, the 28-year-old Edmonson began composing music at a young age.
"The first song that I remember writing in its entirety was when I was 9 years old," Edmonson says. "I wrote it on a bus, on a field trip. It was called 'Mystery Man,' and in retrospect, it was the beginning of my exploration of what it was like to have a man in your life, because I didn't. I grew up with my mom; it was just the two of us. Although I was writing from the perspective of that being a boyfriend, it had very much to do with my father."
Sing a song about a mystery man
When God made him, I think he had a plan
to fool all the girls like he did me
Never did ask him to leave me be
Oh, why'd he go away?
Mystery man, come back to me someday
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