Mike DeSorda has long been a storyteller with a knack for timeless melodies and emotional clarity. But with his latest release 'Bygones My Dove', the Arizona-based songwriter reaches across continents and traditions to create something quietly transcendent. A tender, slow-burning folk ballad featuring the haunting vocals of Wicklow singer Martha Cooke, the track marks a striking detour from DeSorda’s usual Americana palette, and leans into the soul of traditional Irish music.
Written and produced in Prescott, Arizona, yet sounding like it could have drifted out of a centuries-old Irish glen, 'Bygones My Dove' is a song of parting, tenderness, and deep-rooted grace. It’s a testament to DeSorda’s respect for musical heritage and his willingness to follow the song wherever it leads.
So with the new single out now, we caught up with Mike DeSorda to talk about his origins and influences over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
I guess like all kids of the 60s and 70s, I was enamoured with the guitar, but at that time probably more specifically the acoustic guitar, because though my guitar heroes on records played the electric guitar primarily, I had several friends play the acoustic guitar and enjoyed the singer-songwriters of the day.
What kind of music did you love when you were younger?
Pop Rock (think Beatles), Hard Rock (think The Who), Southern Rock (think Eagles), Folk (think Donovan), Blues (think Eric Clapton).
What was the first album you remember owning?
Hard to remember if it was the first album I owned but for sure the first album I “remember” owning was the Beatles Sgt Pepper; my parents bought it for me for Christmas after I nagged them for several weeks beforehand. And, I must have listened to it a thousand times.
What is the one song you wished you could have written yourself?
Oh my, you mean what are the thousand songs I wish I had written. Just one, huh? If you twist my arm, I’ll go with the Moody Blue’s Nights In White Satin. I tend to write and am drawn to ballads, to stories, for some unknown reason, and the theme and mood of this tune is amazing and I just get lost in the meaning of loving someone that does not love you back.
Do you have any habits or rituals you go through when trying to write new music?
Well, first of all, song titles or snippets of song lyrics typically hit my head first. I know a lot of songwriters, in fact most other songwriters I know have some sort of musical hook or phrase that comes to them first, but words come to me first. Literally, I either hear something someone says, or read something, or just a thought will pop in my head, and I’m scrambling for something to write it down before I forget. Also, sometimes when I’m driving around listening to music on the radio, when some song is playing, my own lyrical phrase hits my head and I use the music on the radio to toy with the phrase hitting me and sing my budding lyrics against the song and ignore the song’s actual lyrics. This tactic tells me pretty quickly if I have a winner. Then usually I’ll just find paper and pen and start playing with words and concepts and rhymes until something starts gelling. Usually, I’ll know within an hour if the song has legs. When I get back to it, I then use Guitar Pro to write the score. Funny, I don’t use Guitar Pro for anything related to guitar, but I owned it when I started writing music about a year ago, and found it has this pretty good interface to write scores and have never looked back.
Generally, in the software given how I see the genre going I pick a key as a placeholder, create several dozen measures, set it to 4/4 time, put four quarter notes in each measure as a starting point, start adding the early version of my lyrics (they are sure to radically change as I mature the song), then think through my initial chord progress. I will then spend easily dozens of hours over weeks or months refining the song, and I save working out the melody till last. I admit I’m a plodder. I am the Beethoven of modern songwriting; meaning, I labor over all my songs, tweaking and tweaking and tweaking. Naturally, at some early point I use either or both a guitar and keyboard to start checking out the music and flow and cadence and keep on tweaking. I usually have at least a dozen songs in process at any one time, and I have a list of about a hundred ideas sitting there that I’ll probably never live long enough to get to. Eventually, if all goes well, one of the dozen songs I’m writing will feel like it’s the most mature and maybe 90% done, then I take it to production.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
I admit, I’m pretty bad at keeping up with what is happening with current music trends. Most of what I hear out there just is for a generation I can’t relate to. And, every generation is allowed their styles of music. So, I still tend to listen to what I consider the oldies but goodies or sometimes these days it’s called classic rock. My very biased opinionated subjective view of the best music is that the music roughly between the mid 60s to the mid 60s was one of the most amazing creative outbursts of music the world has ever known.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
Paul McCartney
What do you find is the most rewarding part about being a musician?
Well, I’m actually just an ok amateur musician and I play well enough to write songs, my passion, but I can always find better players to actually use when I produce my songs. So, I guess the answer is the most rewarding part about being a musician is having the knowledge and skills, including music theory, to write good songs (I hope they’re good songs)
And what is the most frustrating part?
Getting my smallish hands to reach all the fingering on too many guitar chords.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
Well, this is not quite answering the question, which I will answer, and this is I guess not advice per se, but I actually started writing a year ago at the age of 69 because one of my music teachers challenged me to start. And, it was something I have been thinking about my entire life, but it took until the age of 69 to have the skills I needed. So, I literally did not overthink it, I just did it. In fact, to this day, aside from buying a beginner songwriters book, I’ve not taken any songwriting classes.
Best Advice: I think the best advice I have gotten for songwriting (and now that I think about it, this ties to the above musing) is from all the great singer-songwriters of the 60s and 70s. Now, to be sure they don’t know they’ve given me advice, but they have in the sense that the vast majority of them doubt ever had a single songwriting lesson, yet they produced amazing music the world will enjoy for centuries. To me the lesson is, don’t overthink it, understand the very basics of music theory and structure, and just do it. They are all my inspiration everyday when I sit down to write.
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Mike DeSorda's new single 'Bygones My Dove' is out now. Check it out in the player below.