Happy Lucky Lost & Free Full Album

• Track Listing

Happy Lucky Lost & Free, a full album of 13 songs, was written and recorded by independent artist, Melanie Devaney. This album is a collection of her own labor -- thoughts, observations on the world: both it's beauty and it's ugliness; it's universals and it's individualities. It comes from the physical efforts of writing, playing an instrument and flat-out living with enough perception to ingest the world and spit it back out as something new and enlightening for the listener. Many of the songs were written in the fall of 2007, after spending most of August playing shows in South Dakota and Wyoming, seeking adventure, soaking it in with old friends and gaining new ones along the way. Returning to her home state of Iowa and finding the grey autumn and ensuing winter, she settled into some serious song writing during and between her many trips to shows she played within the constraints of fog, sleet and snow. The album is dedicated to a college friend and fellow poet, Lora Krogman, who was killed in a car accident that gloomy fall of 2007. The last song on the album ('Theology of a Lonely God') was written after a dream that included the spirit of that special friend. Many of the songs are inspired by those she met during her journeys throughout the Midwest. Some display a little attitude (like 'Happy Lucky Lost & Free' and 'Walk A Mile'). Others portray her meek and mellow side (like 'Please Don't Be Afraid' and 'Actress'). And yet others show a contradictive dilemma she faces about her desires to travel ('Stay Here If I Could', 'Miles to Fly' and 'See You in the Spring'). Facing the prediction of many snow storms that winter, Melanie found herself gloomy and isolated. Rather than going on anti-depressants, she resorted to acupuncture instead. Finding her 'energy flows' were stagnant, she was able free those flows and discover a bit of clarity and focus. She rediscovered the joys of real letter writing -- meaning paper letter, handwritten, signed, stamped and delivered by U.S. Postal Service. That joy is expressed in the song titled 'Waiting Patiently'. She ponders waiting for the return of a soldier in "End of the War". And there's a Latin flavored song, "Last Glass of Love". In January, 2008, she headed to the studio with musician, singer-songwriter and producer, Ted Wulfers of Chicago to work on this album. Working through a 4-day blizzard and with a hodge poge of her demos, he created a personal masterpiece for Melanie Devaney -- this album. It's a compilation of loosely threaded songs, as diversified as the artist herself.