Anais Mitchell & Charlotte Cornfield

“The things we strive for already exist in their perfect state in our subconscious. The question is: how do we as songwriters get them out of there?”—Anaïs Mitchell

“The mellow wistfulness right before sleep is a source of creativity. Being run down and a little emotional is a nice place to write from.”—Charlotte Cornfield

Artists are always searching for the ideal creative state, that perfect time when the songs effortlessly flow. With both Anaïs Mitchell and Charlotte Cornfield, that involves, well, not really being aware of when they’re in that ideal state.

For Mitchell, it involves accessing the subconscious in dreams. If she’s lucky, a fellow songwriter might appear in those dreams to give her counsel, like David Rawlings once did. And for Cornfield, that brief moment right before sleep, when she’s just about to doze off, is an especially fertile time.

To be sure, Mitchell and Cornfield love a good deadline. Their songwriting processes involve structure and discipline, not just sleeping and dreaming. “I'm a big fan of having a routine and showing up for it, even if nothing happens,” Mitchell told me. And they also find artistic inspiration in blank email messages (Mitchell), skateboards (Cornfield), door panels (Mitchell), and black ink (both). In fact, Mitchell is so versed in door panels that she actually told Cornfield and me what kind of door panels we have after noticing them in our interview.

In case you were wondering how I picked Mitchell and Cornfield as an interview pair, here’s my highly scientific process. I follow two artists on Twitter, then from that I see if they follow each other. If they do, then it’s match. Turns out that Mitchell and Cornfield have known each other for over ten years, so their familiarity made this a very fun conversation. Enjoy!