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About Letitia

Baltimore City

Letitia VanSant’s lyrics are as personal as they are political, tracing questions of power into the human heart. With sparse indie folk arrangements fortifying a distinctly intimate vocal style, her down-to-earth stage presence has been described as vibrant and approachable.  

Paste Magazine named her among 10 Artists to Watch in 2020, BBC Radio says she is “a fascinating new artist,” and PopMatters called her “a consummate reflection of a rising Americana star.” Her songwriting has earned several awards, including the… more

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Breakfast Truce

“VanSant’s voice is the most striking aspect of the record,” the Baltimore City Paper wrote when the album was released in 2012. “It is part Iris DeMent with a little Dolly Parton (and maybe even some Rose Maddox) thrown in. But after repeated listens, the quality of her songwriting begins to come out. She’s a clever woman with a lot to say. She claims that much of her music is motivated by a cross-country bike ride she took as well as her Quaker beliefs, but you don’t have to be a biking Quaker catch the drift. And she doesn’t try to write like she’s living in Tennessee in 1933 either. The outstanding opener, “Macy’s Parking Lot,” makes the eponymous landscape sound as high and lonesome as the riverbank of any murder ballad.”
  • Bathwater Baby
    she wore her grass stains with a wounded soldier's pride holes in her stockings and mud all tracked inside hid in the tool shed every time she cried she smeared the queer made fun of the kid from germany sticks and stones they broke her bones and they added insult to injury didn't want to be a pretty girl anyway her books were boring and the tv picture sucked asked her brother where the liquor cabinet was took his guitar out to sulk in the garage thought the sunrise was another cheap trick from jesus made her think that maybe she could love god goody two shoes could have those sour grapes left in a huff to march to her own drum only to find that she never even had one no one to fill her afternoons nowhere to sing those tomboy blues bathwater baby wasn't always such a mess but she threw herself out with all the rest it was a notion that was never second-guessed
  • Breakfast Truce
    well they backed him in a corner he was scared cause they were pissed just him and all them fists slapping in the dark and the doctors were redundant cause he already knew that just like me or you he had to hold on one more night boy you've gotta walk like a fool through that line of fire between the cold dark ground and the morning star don't be the sorry soul who breaks the truce better to be dead and gone and tried and true at the pastor's play at christmas he spoke those lonely lines just him and all those eyes watching from the dark and the critics, lord forgive them, they know not what they done tied his mouth up shut ain't never gonna speak up well he hung his head and wept when he heard the back door slam just him and both his hands and everything they'd done there's no angry silent night the morning cannot cure at breakfast he was sure he would win her back again credits
  • The Notion
    my love is a river, it's wild and it's deep i've searched for it's sources, they're hidden from me i've got the notion that it flows to an ocean that will never ever end my love is a fire, it's burning and it's true i've got the notion that this steadfast devotion it will never ever end when i'm lost in the dead of night, the cold wind blows its lonely cry i will keep on looking i'll be searching for you my love is a mountain it's strong as it is tall there's no man can move it, he'll try but he'll fall i'll keep on climbing til my hands touch the sky and it will never ever end
  • Brambles
    like an earthworm stranded on the sidewalk like a rat drowned in the pool it's more a spectacle than a tragedy less an exception than the rule like a puzzle missing the final piece like a leaky boat on the lake i've tried so hard to make the best of this the voyager's lost her way and please, please say you like me just let me know something is real been chasing specters through the brambles building castles for the waves like the pause at the ends of your sentences like the darkness before the dawn this silence is not really empty a breath before the plunge
  • As I Was Told
    well i left the east to embrace the west i expected applause for my confessions i can show you how to pirouette as you evolve if you can show me how to peel this flower off the wall i like to think that my soul would rise up through minnesota's open skies still i'd like to know, are they as open as i was told darling won't you draw the blinds cause every morning is a second try I can show you how to miss someone before they're gone If you can show me how to fake it all along I like to think that i could recognize what's communicated by your eyes still i'd like to know is this as real as your eyes told me so i'll conform to what i'm told to until you rebel but if revolutions are our solutions only time will tell and as time turns my curves to lines my questions become my exclamations i can show you how to know when you've figured it all out if you can show me how to keep your foot out of your mouth every book i ever seem to start before i'm done they always fall apart still i'd
  • Reunion
  • The Bits & The Pieces
    black cross hatch on december sky bare trees and tangled powerlines a lonely sparrow with open mouth mother brothers have all flown south little birdie hope springs eternal in your stubborn breast go on and gather the bits and the pieces for your empty nest and i know there's something to be said for somedays a wrinkled woman on icy steps nightmares of catching her death of winter colds and broken necks bitter warnings escape pursed lips fragile lady bones made of china won't you crack a smile you've been wasting hopeless and worried the last years of your life and i know there's something to be said for caution oh rosy cheeks, breathless on the mat, wipe off your feet from silence the doorbell rang, never thought i'd see you home again
  • Brother Left the Mine
    Brother left the mine in November strung out one foot in the grave i thought i heard him crying on the bathroom floor it's hard to recognize the brave the smell of the blue vinyl bus seats the hum of the engine below the rhythm of the telephone poles going by and the endless broken road brother you just can't be everywhere and no you can't please everyone and so let go of your aching heart and learn to love your place some things up ahead are illusions could say the same of the things left behind the dirty black soot in the grit of your teeth and the sirens in your mind
  • Macy's Parking Lot
    in the fountain in the courtyard by the macy's parking lot i emptied all my pockets for you by the macy's parking lot in the kitchen in our blue house making tea in my nightgown how i wish i'd tried to make the eggs how you like in the kitchen in our blue house oh when i go to the valley ask the wild birds to call out your name i'll take my comfort in their silence in the sweet prefixes of spring in the swing on our front porch how i miss your creak on floor boards how i wish i could see you sitting here next to me in the swing on our front porch
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    • Parts & Labor

    When you return to a garage to pick up your car after repairs, you are handed a bill for “parts and labor.” The “parts” are things like spark plugs and oil-drain pans, while “labor” is the hours spent by the mechanics. But you seldom see the mechanics at work, so it's tempting to think of the gadgets and workers as interchangeable cogs in the great machine that keeps society running.

    “Parts & Labor,” the new album from Letitia VanSant & the Bonafides, fights that temptation with all the considerable skill and passion the folk-rock band's four members can muster. The ten original songs work hard to proclaim that we are all much more than parts and labor to the machine of our economy.

    They do so not only through the lyrics’ evocative dramas but also through the give-and-take between traditional acoustic instruments and their buzzing electric successors. Out of that negotiation emerge striking melodies, and when those tunes blossom into four-part harmonies, it’s as if a solitary voice has become a community.

    VanSant debuted the album at the Creative Alliance in an inspiring collaboration with Potluck Storytelling, in which a diverse group of Baltimoreans shared personal narratives on the theme.
    • Promised Land
      Once I was a fly, flew from room to room Now I am a pen, write the story of a greater hand I am a road and I'm headed for the promised land We've all been told there's not enough for everyone We guard what we hold dear with laws and with guns Instead of all these walls, let's build the kingdom come Used to knock on all the doors that shut us out Now we build our own house One with no walls that will shelter us all
    • When I Was Your Age
      When I was your age We would play by the side of the bay Made forts from the driftwood and pies from the clay My mother would smile from a beach chair all day When I was your age But child you can't get there anymore The bridge washed away long ago The house blew to splinters in a terrible storm Now it is driftwood on faraway shores Oh child you can't get there anymore When I was your age There was snow on the mountains as pure as the rain There were creatures by the millions, many more than I can say No ark to save them they all died away When I was your age A fairy tale to you it must seem I suppose that it might as well be But I want you to know all these things you'll never see I want you to know that I'm sorry I'm sorry They told us it was coming, it was coming very soon They told us it was coming, I did not know what to do Didn't know what to do so I wrote this little tune I wrote this little tune, a prayer for you Oh God bless you
    • Go Darling
      here’s wrinkles in my shirt sleeves and dishes in the sink And nothing but ham on bread for nigh on a week You left your worn-out apron and took your brand new boots In the suitcase I bought you for our first honeymoon Go darling go, it’s a long lonesome road But the fire in your heart, and the trouble it would start Would burn this old house down Round the time I lost your temper you stopped curling up your hair You’d go out by the fence post just stand right there and stare Well you ungrateful woman, you made me play the fool Well I could teach you more than you will ever learn in school Left the door wide open, cold air blowing in I don’t bother to shut it, cause you’ll come back again Well you ungrateful woman, by now you ought to know You should swallow your pride my dear and come back home
    • Parts & Labor
      In clothing sewn in crowded rooms Eating food picked by weary bones At table cleaned by tired feet A meal served from fatigue I act like it’s my birth right To stumble round like a drunken fool But some know this is hallowed ground Don’t deserve our dirty boots Well I wonder where those feet would go Wonder what those hands would do If they ever had a row to hoe and a moment to choose Well move along, don’t care where you go But we need this sidewalk clear Loose parts in the back of some forgotten drawer Is there anywhere on God’s green earth that I can pull my weight A place for everyone and everyone in his place I buit a house of mud and straw It cracked in the freeze and thaw So I retreat on my knees To the city I withdraw Someday the Lord will open all the doors All the bells a-ringing true A place at every table waiting there just for you Well all we are is parts and labor To this engine’s indifferent hum Scrape the bottom of the barrell
    • Master Plan
      Wind is high where I”m going i can’t say where I’ve been but We are made out of clay Shatter and start again I’m not a threat to your freedom I'm defending my own master plan From the nightmares that used to bite at my heels Before I learned how to dance I don’t know and neither do you YOu can’t see and neither can I The landscape repeats, an old-fashioned cartoon Still we continue to ride Knee high by july Something borrowed and something blue All these rules fool the fools I don’t need a frame to picture you If you think that you’re at the helm of your destiny That I hold the world in the palm of my hand Just watch the mountain bow to the valley See the ocean defined by the sand
    • Tea Still Sweet
      THe long rows of cotton turn to soybeans and corn And what was once gravel is asphalt Well I think our vices our bound to transform with each starry-eyed generation The tea is still sweet and the crickets still sing But termites they threaten foundations The river takes a piece of the bank each year The thicket advances each spring The chess set misses its queen We city folk long for our roots in the fields But it’s such a long drive to the country I barely find time just to eat with my family Seems that it’s just too soon monday The bible’s now the self-help section With prices we’re willing to pay The meaning of my resurrection Is the fact that I get up every day
    • Rising Tide
      This disease and its gnashing teeth It brings me to my knees makes me bow before God I'm not proud that that's what it took To make me believe what's in every good book All these chemicals that made you sick Wanna find the man who made them and show this to him The long lonesome hallways and the ruined plans The look in your eyes and the trembling hands I tried to be patient like my mother but I can't be We ran aground now honey sit tight and hope we'll float out on the rising tide You said the breeze it feels oh so sweet But you must be getting old 'cause it's something old folks say As a measure of time, well, what good is age It takes so many years to learn to hold on the days They can pour all this money down the hole in your side All the money on Wall Street, these tears can't dry they've got plans for our pockets, cigarettes for our lungs Poison for our babies and bullets for our guns I am a cog in this machine that ruins lives of people unseen I can't sto
    • Step in Line
      Oh my dear you look so tired in the pale morning light Chin hung around your chest and all those bags hanging from your eyes Oh step in line, step in line Oh step in time, step in time The lines on the calendar are the bars on my cage This train thunders through my weeks and all the years bulldoze through my dreams We’ll find a way out of this prison baby with only the shirts upon our backs Green pastures of plenty are waiting outside My path is laid out there before me, and my back a sheet of steel All my breaths now whistle warnings, blow me by, and stand you clear
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