Singled Out: Noah Hoffeld's Mobile Home

Keavin Wiggins | 07-30-2023

Album cover art

Noah Hoffeld recently released his new album, "Mobile Home". To celebrate, we asked him to tell us about one of the songs and he selected the title track. Here is the story:

Little did I know when I wrote Mobile Home that I was actually creating an incantation, a magic spell that would take us from our apartment, and deliver us to an actual mobile home, far, far away.

Once upon a time, my girlfriend and I lived in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Being a native, I was enjoying my hometown and being surrounded by a lot of creative people. You could walk down the block to rehearse with your favorite guitarist. You could walk to the East River esplanade, and gaze out over the New York skyline. It was pretty magical.

When Hurricane Sandy came in 2012, big chunks of that esplanade were torn away. Cars were underwater and the subway shut down, flooded and broken. I was crushed too. I felt urgency about the planet, and wanted to write about it. On Play Human (2015) I sang with that feeling in songs like Prayer for the World.

For my next album though, I wanted to write fun songs about these serious issues, cause we were all feeling heavy enough as it was. Mobile Home was just such a idea- Mother Earth is a big mobile home we're all living in, traveling through space, and we all need to take care of her.

But then the world stopped. Covid hit NYC, and the destruction and danger were huge. I was going to enter the studio with Mark Plati, who coproduced Bowie's Earthling among many great things, and Doug Yowell, Joe Jackson's drummer, was gonna join us. So much for that. For many musicians, Escape From New York became the new reality. We left too.

We searched a long time for a place to live up north with no luck- everything was being snatched up. Finally, after many weeks, we found a single listing in our budget, in a place we'd never been to. Somehow, we visited the home and it was perfect- a prefab trailer in the woods! It had enough room for the two of us, a small room to record in, and was super comfy. We settled in and, eventually, I recorded Mobile Home there, remotely with Mark and Doug.

The wild process of making an album without ever seeing the other musicians or being in the same room is another story for another day. Suffice it to say that it worked out and, despite the strange process, we were all super happy with the result. And it all happened from my little room in a mobile home far away from Brooklyn. The song had worked its magic and somehow seemed to make things happen through the very power of its creation.

Now, let me look into my crystal ball and see what else I can write spells for. Maybe, if we all focus really hard, we can write some cures for what ails the world today....

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album and Noah here