In this interview, Josh Ritter says that “songs come at their own time, and you just can’t do anything about it. For a good song, you have to wait.”
Josh Ritter has never been in a hurry with songs. Over the last two decades, the Idaho-born songwriter has learned to let them arrive when they’re ready—much like unannounced guests or weather patterns rolling across a vast Western sky. In that space of waiting, he has filled his life with novels, paintings, fatherhood, and touring, each one feeding the others, each one an expression of the same restless joy. His new album, I Believe in You, My Honeydew, is less a career milestone than another chapter in Ritter‘s ongoing dialogue with creativity itself.
Born in Moscow, Idaho, Ritter first picked up the guitar as a teenager after hearing the music of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. He self-released his first album in 1999 and, over the years, built a reputation for literate, heartfelt songwriting that blends folk traditions with contemporary storytelling. Today, Ritter is not only a successful recording artist but also a novelist, painter, and father of two. He has released more than a dozen records, with his latest one arriving on 12th September.
Despite the accolades, Ritter still discusses creativity in simple, almost homespun terms: patience, curiosity, and joy. “Songs come at their own time, and you just can’t do anything about it. For a good song, you have to wait. You just have to wait, and you have to be able to use your time in productive ways, other than just going crazy waiting for those songs,” he says.
For Ritter, waiting turned into something unexpected: a passion for novels. “Writing novels came out of that,” he explained. “It was almost like a defense against sitting around and moping when I wasn’t writing songs. But it turned into something so gratifying. It takes so much longer (to write a book)—a first draft can take a year. That was new to me, somebody who sometimes writes a song in eight minutes. It’s a whole different piece, but kind of using the same tools.”
Ritter admits he once feared his creativity might burn out. Not anymore. “I used to be so afraid that creativity would burn out, but the actual making of stuff is joy. Songwriting is joy. We want joy to fill as much of our lives as possible.”
The delight of music, he says, is something we all share. “If we’re doing the thing that brings us joy, we’re able to relate to joy that people find in everything. Because we understand that joy is like a gas—it could fill up all available space that we allow it.”
That philosophy anchors I Believe in You, My Honeydew. “I’m never afraid the fire is going to go away anymore,” he said. “My job isn’t to feed some monster, like I used to think. It’s to offer creativity a seat at the table. You are welcome to this feast. You are welcome to this experience. We’ll learn gratitude together. That’s a beautiful relationship to have with a non-physical entity—but that’s the one I’m staking my claim to.”
Ask Ritter what makes a song work, and he’ll talk less about craft than about feeling. “Songwriting is a way to talk about big things and be a little blinking light,” he said. “To show that there are other people out there thinking about the stuff that could make us lonely or confused or hurt. The muse wants the chance to be human, to go through these cycles of love and heartache. When it comes to you, try it out. Songs are like the dreams you remember.”
On stage, those songs take on new meaning. “The stage is a Pavlovian response. It’s my chance to complete the circle of what a song really is. Songs are like letters home from an unknown place. Writing them is sending those letters. Playing them live is reporting back in person.”
For Ritter, falling into a portal of courtesy is the most divine feeling. “All you have to do is knock on the door of anything, and there’s a portal there,” Ritter said. “My way toward bliss is through curiosity—through sitting down at the empty page or with a song that hasn’t been written yet. Those epiphanies—that’s what you live for. They don’t always happen at the page or at the guitar. But when they do, those are the moments that end up on a record.”
The songs on I Believe in You, My Honeydew came together with a clear mood in mind. “I wanted to make a record that sounded good under a big, wide-open sky at night, with a bonfire, solo cups, maybe a nine-layer dip,” he said. “Beautiful, but also a party. I wanted it to be nocturnal, but not so late that the big kids can’t stay out. The songs felt like natural companions to one another. They belong together.”
A pair of highlights includes “Thunderbird”, a dreamy song with a rambling beat, and “You Won’t Dig My Grave”, a faithful declaration of resilience and self-assurance. “Happy accidents of writing a lot of songs are that they don’t always have to fit together, but these did. They found each other.”
Josh Ritter is quick to note that songs don’t appear from nowhere. “Stuff only really happens when you’re busy,” he says, paraphrasing a favorite Leonard Cohen line: when your life is burning brightly, songs are just the ashes.
“If your life is busy, if your world is big, if you’re reaching out to new people and maintaining a place in your friends’ hearts, songs come about because you’re happy, because your life isn’t under assault. You can’t live on songs. You’ve got to live with other people.”
He’s grateful for the listeners who make space for those songs. “I know how busy the day is. Allowing music into the day can be a relief for the soul. Those moments are beautiful and precious. I want to bring comfort to people, and my way is writing songs.”
Though Ritter now tours the world, his Idaho roots remain strong. “Idaho makes you feel like infinitesimal dust. I call it divine,” he said. “My first shows were at a fancy pizza place in Moscow, farmer’s markets, and Black Bird Java in Lewiston. I once set up my own show in the Old City Hall before I should have and sold tickets myself.”
That grounding extends to his longtime bandmates, the Royal City Band. “Touring is intimate—vans, close quarters, sound checks at the same time every day. Music becomes the common language. It’s like the Elizabethan traveling theater groups. It’s remarkable we’ve lasted this long, but we belong playing together.”
At 48, Ritter embraces the shifts that come with time. “You speak from a different place when you get older. New things occur to you. Memories start to make more sense—or they start to feel like dreams. Everything gets stranger, and that’s good.”
Strange, joyful, patient, curious—these are the qualities that keep Josh Ritter’s songs alive. I Believe in You, My Honeydew is not just another record, but a reminder that creativity, like pleasure, fills all the space we allow it to occupy.