Nomadic singer-songwriter JW Francis returns with a new irresistible single and music video “Watery Road". The folk rock track marks the beginning of an ambitious new chapter, one shaped not in studios, but along rivers, trails, and the unplanned spaces in between. Written during a solo canoe journey down the Mississippi River, "Watery Road" introduces Magic River, a multi-format project that blurs the line between music, memory, and lived experience.
JW Francis has long carved out a space as a modern musical wanderer, where life and art move in tandem. In conversation with Earmilk, the artist chats the scenery that shapes his creative process, recording in New York City and a wild tour story. The result is an authentic and fun read bringing fans into the songwriter's world.
“Watery Road” feels like the start of a bigger story. What was the moment along the Mississippi when you first realized this journey might become a full project?
I think it hit me somewhere between talking to a turtle and dropping my phone in the river. There was a day where nothing “important” happened—just water, sky, a guy mowing his lawn who waved like he’d known me forever, and I felt this strange fullness. Like the river was already telling a story and I was just late to writing it down. That’s when it stopped being a trip and started being a project. Or maybe a project that refused to behave like one.
How did writing songs while canoeing the Mississippi change the way you approached songwriting compared to being in a studio?
The river doesn’t care if your chorus is catchy. It barely cares if you exist. So you stop trying to impress anything. Songs became more like noticing than inventing. In a studio, you can chase perfection. On the river, you’re just hoping your notebook doesn’t fall in. It made everything looser, truer, like the songs had dirt under their fingernails.
You’ve described the song as a kind of postcard from the road. What message do you feel it carries?
“Wish you were here, but also I barely understand where ‘here’ is.” It’s a postcard that got a little smudged. I think it’s about movement without conclusion, about being in between versions of yourself and letting that be enough. Also maybe: drink more water. Trust the long way.
Your upcoming project Magic River was written in real time along the Mississippi River. What did a typical day on that journey look like?
Wake up slightly confused but optimistic. Pack everything like a game of Tetris you’re destined to lose. Paddle for hours thinking about one line of a song. Eat something that feels like a reward. Meet someone who says one sentence that rearranges your brain. Paddle more. Get sunburned in a place you didn’t know could burn. Write a lyric right before falling asleep and then question it completely in the morning. Repeat until you become a little bit more river-shaped.
After writing these songs outdoors, what was it like bringing them into a live recording environment in New York City?
It felt like bringing a fish into a subway car. Slippery, and wild. But there’s also this electricity in New York that wakes the songs up in a different way. The goal wasn’t to clean them up too much, just to let them wear a new jacket instead of changing their personality.
The project expands beyond music into film, photography, and an audiobook. Why was it important to tell this story in multiple formats?
Because the river doesn’t happen in just one language. Some moments are songs, some are pictures, some are the kind of stories you tell out loud with your hands moving a lot. I didn’t want to flatten it into one medium. Also I think memory itself is kind of multimedia, blurry, loud, quiet, all at once.
Your new creative arc seems focused on documenting American places and people rather than romanticizing them. What kinds of stories are you most interested in capturing right now?
I’m interested in the small, almost invisible moments, the ones that don’t feel like stories until later. A conversation at a gas station. A joke that doesn’t quite land but stays with you. People who are just quietly being themselves in a place that doesn’t make headlines. I think there’s something really beautiful about not trying to turn everything into a myth.
What have you learned about the country by moving through it slowly, on foot, by canoe, or on tour?
That it’s impossible to summarize, which is kind of the point. But also that people are generally kinder than the internet would have you believe. And that slowness changes everything, you start to notice how similar we all are, and how strange, and how both can be true at the same time.
You’ve built a career playing over 100 shows a year, often self-booked. Can you tell our readers a fun or wild tour story?
I once played a show where the “green room” was a trampoline and the only audience member for the first three songs was a dog who seemed politely interested. By the end, it was packed and someone handed me a sandwich mid-song like it was part of the setlist. Touring feels like that a lot, slightly chaotic, deeply human, occasionally sandwich-based.
If “Watery Road” is the first coordinate on this new map of songs, where do you think the journey goes next?
I think it keeps following the places where things feel a little unresolved. Maybe more rivers, maybe highways, maybe just a really long walk somewhere unexpected. I’m less interested in arriving and more interested in continuing to be surprised. Ideally, the map never fully makes sense, but you still want to keep unfolding it.
Connect with JW Francis : INSTAGRAM
