Dawn Landes Recalls Tori Murden McClure’s Transatlantic Journey on “Mount Everest”

Today Dawn Landes shares “Mount Everest,” the intimate lead single off her forthcoming album, ROW, which was inspired by Tori Murden McClure’s efforts to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1998 and 1999.

“I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and first read about Tori Murden McClure in the newspaper when I was in high school,” says Landes in a statement. “Her story captured my imagination…a woman from my hometown, alone, rowing across the Atlantic Ocean…In the song she’s responding to reporters asking, what she called in her memoir, ‘the worst question of all’… Why?”

According to a press statement, Landes gave playwright Daniel Goldstein a copy of that memoir—A Pearl in the Storm—when he asked about collaborating with the singer-songwriter on a project. The resulting musical, ROW, would have premiered this summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival until the COVID-19 pandemic derailed that plan.

“My intention was to release the album the same day as the world premiere this summer,” Landes comments. “It was disappointing to have to postpone the show but I feel lucky to be able to share these songs now, in a time when so many people are feeling alone and at sea in the midst of everything.”

“Mount Everest” is a tender first look at ROW, centering on that ‘worst question of all.’

“Why would you climb Mount Everest? / Why would you row the sea? / Why would I climb Mount Everest? / ‘Cause it’s in front of me,” Landes sings in the stripped-down number over gentle strings and percussion. “It’s not about going from point a to point b / The solitude and all the uncertainty / I’ll confront my demons before they get to me.”

The track arrives with a video—premiering below—that features McClure’s own footage.

“The footage in the video is from 1998 and 1999, filmed mostly by Tori herself as a video-journal and a way to stay somewhat sane while enduring three months of solitude out on the ocean,” explains Landes of the visual.

Landes self-produced the 18 songs on ROW, but the project was also shaped by musical director Mary-Mitchell Campbel and Louisville-based composer and violinist Scott Moore. The album follows Landes’ 2019 EP, My Tiny Twilight, and her 2018 full-length, Meet Me at the River. A theatrical recording of ROW—the musical—will premiere on Audible later this year.

ROW was commissioned by New York Voices in 2015. That same year, Landes delivered a TED Talk called “A song for my hero, the woman who rowed into a hurricane,” in which she recounts McClure’s story. 

“In June of 1999, Tori Murden McClure left Nags Head, North Carolina for France,” Landes says at the start of her talk and performance. “That’s her boat,” she adds, pointing to a picture of McClure sitting in The American Pearl. “It was 23-feet-long and just six feet across at its widest point. The deck was the size of a cargo bed of a Ford F150 pickup truck. Tori and her friends built in by hand.”

Check out McClure’s boat and revisit her transatlantic journeys in the “Mount Everest” video below.

“Mount Everest” is out now. ROW is out later this year.