Movement in the Music

Movement in the Music

By Dylan Frost

Although her modest side would disagree, local singer/songwriter Jessica Jo Jolly is a go-getter at heart and in practice.

The way 32-year-old Jolly is able to compose a song often leads people to believe that she is a student of music, yet her admiration for music comes second to her life as an SIU law student. Jolly has been a law student for more than three years and will graduate in May with her Ph.D.

Jolly, who aspires to someday work in London as an attorney, said she never considered going to school for music.

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“I think that my parents would have laughed me out the door and maybe grounded me if I had told them that’s what I was going to do,” she said. “Even though music is such a big part of our life – and they have supported me in all of my endeavors to play out – they have also always required that I have a profession.”

Despite her dedication toward education, Jolly is often spotted on various stages across southern Illinois with her Taylor acoustic guitar and banjitar — a hybrid of a guitar and banjo — singing folk and classical country songs, many of which she wrote herself.

Often her songs speak of jilted love, such as the falling apart of an interpersonal relationship. The songs tend to drive an emotional response from her audience and from herself.

“One of my favorite things is being unassuming,” she said. “It tends to get more attention. I like it because I like to emote, I like to use my voice and that’s where the emotion is. Nobody is singing deep, dark minor notes about being happy.”

That somber tone is reflected in her song “Romeo Won’t Let Me Die.” It is the first song she wrote in Carbondale and it reflects on a failed relationship she experienced while living in San Diego.

“Romeo won’t let me die/that’s all right with me this time/He can use just a little mending,” she sang with a breathy tone.

Jolly’s love for playing guitar is reinforced by her need to carry a capo everywhere she goes. She has become well known in her hometown of Warrensburg for performing, and is often called to play in a public setting. The capo allows her to change the pitch of the guitar and sing in a higher key, rather than struggling to sing along with a tuned-down guitar.

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But she loves taking advantage of those situations even if she is constrained in some way. Despite being in a walking boot from a leg injury caused by running sprints, Jolly fought through the pain to record a live performance in a practice space above the Huffman-Harker funeral home in Carbondale.

“I’m booted but not down,” Jolly said before performing an appropriately-titled song called “Both Feet,” a song she calls pragmatic because it is neither happy nor sad, neither down nor out.

“I have found that there is nothing new/Trouble always finds its way to what I do/I have found that there is nothing strange/Problems come and problems go and people rearrange with both feet on the floor/One foot out the door,” she sings.

Jolly said she only wanted to learn how to play guitar well enough to be able to play along to songs and never thought she would write her own music. In fact, Jolly has never been interested in learning music theory and is often unfamiliar with the chords she is playing when writing a new song.

Her anxiety with music theory dates back to when she was taking piano lessons. Instead of practicing the scales her teacher assigned, Jolly learned how to play songs she found interesting by ear, which frustrated her teacher enough to dismiss Jolly as a student.

However, coming from a family enthusiastic about playing and collecting music, Jolly became proficient at writing her own tunes, something she has only been doing for about seven years.

“You need someone to recognize your song as legitimate before you feel like you’re a songwriter,” she said. “I had the good fortune of having a lot of good mentors around, family members and friends who were far ahead of me in the songwriting game.”

She often writes about specific situations people find themselves involved in. After being inspired by a PBS documentary, she wrote a song paying tribute to a distraught Korean solider upset by the lack of attention given to the Korean War.

A Sleep Inn sign she took while traveling inspired another song. “Do not wake me; I am having the best dream,” reads the sign that inspired the song – one that is equalized by major and minor chords helping express that melancholy tone present in many of her songs.

“I don’t really rise above ambivalence in terms of positivity,” she said.

Jolly often writes songs about expectations versus the realities of love. Those songs might be disguised by happy and complacent musical overtones, although her hard work and self-guidance still steers her to a comfortable place.

And while it might not be immediately obvious to her, Jolly is very grounded and composed.

“I have probably lived four lives,” Jolly said. “I never made any big drastic change, I never picked up the phone and called everyone and told them what I was going to do. I just said ‘what does an attorney do everyday?’ So I started doing that everyday. And now in six months I will be taking [the Bar Exam].”

Jolly concedes to the struggles of balancing school and music, but also understands the necessities of finishing school.

“What sucks about it isn’t that it’s hard, what sucks is that you essentially have to choose at one point,” Jolly said. “And music is the type of thing that if you don’t make a priority of staying current – staying on the scene – you stop.”

She also serves as an executive officer on the school of law’s government board, which has limited her ability to play recently.

Her advice to young adults is to keep trying to do the things they love; showing up is 90 percent of the struggle and simply putting in the effort will help people find a gratifying place.

“Anything is doable,” she said. “Stay happy and eat the elephant one bite at a time.”

Jolly’s music can be found at JessicaJoJolly.BandCamp.com

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