Behind the Song

Writing songs has become a way for me to speak my truth. If you want to know who I am, just listen to my songs — they are a snapshot of my soul and have helped me make sense of my life. In her book Saved by a Song Mary Gauthier wrote, “Songs are a faint whisper from the future that pull from the past and seep into the present.” Rosanne Cash has also described songs as being “postcards from the future.” I wholeheartedly agree. 

Songs are mysterious. Even though I have earned a Master Certificate of Songwriting from Berklee School of Music and learned from some of the best songwriters on this earth, I still can’t tell you how a song comes to life. I know the basics — the form, the rhyming schemes, the patterns, the progressions, but there is something else I can’t define. Songs are alive, and they have the power touch the innermost emotions of a human being.

I wrote my first song when I was 15. It was about a boy I met on the beach in California. It was called I Fell For You Too Fast — a teenage love story. Since that time, I have written many more songs, and each one was inspired by something — a person, a conversation, a book I read, or just life in general. When I play these songs live, I usually tell a part of the back story, but not always. So here are the stories behind the songs for those who are interested in such things.