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Speaker 1: Hey, you ever had an earworm? You know what those are, right,

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Speaker 1: A part of a song that kind of gets stuck

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Speaker 1: in your head and you can't get rid of it. Well,

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Speaker 1: imagine an endless earworm, only it's not a song you've

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Speaker 1: ever heard before. It keeps changing and it never ever

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Speaker 1: goes away. I'm Patty Steele, the earworm that changed an

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Speaker 1: Academy Award winner's life. That's next on the backstory. The

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Speaker 1: backstory is back. Music is a funny thing. Songs get

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Speaker 1: stuck in your head even when you don't want them to.

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Speaker 1: They fill you with emotion, love, sadness, longing, even anger

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Speaker 1: and jealousy. But imagine music running through your head constantly,

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Speaker 1: music you don't recognize or know what to do with,

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Speaker 1: and you can't make it go away. It sounds like

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Speaker 1: a setup for somebody slowly being driven insane. Right. Well,

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Speaker 1: this actually happened to Academy Award winning actress Mary Steinbergen

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven. She had some minor surgery

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Speaker 1: on her arm, but she had to undergo general anesthesia

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Speaker 1: to get it done. When she woke up, her brain

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Speaker 1: had changed. Her brain function felt bizarre. It had become

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Speaker 1: something she didn't recognize she felt odd. The moment she

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Speaker 1: started to emerge from the fog of the anesthesia, she says,

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Speaker 1: her brain was filled with music, every thought, every sound,

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Speaker 1: things people said to her, even thing she saw became musical.

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Speaker 1: It sounds nice, right, but not so much. She said.

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Speaker 1: She'd even look at a street sign and it would

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Speaker 1: become music in her head. Her brain was only music

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Speaker 1: at first. The whole experience was suffocating, she said, an upsetting, constant,

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Speaker 1: involuntary sort of musicality. And it wasn't pleasant. It was

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Speaker 1: annoying and scary. Her husband, actor Ted Danson, was scared too.

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Speaker 1: She says, I couldn't act at first because I couldn't

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Speaker 1: learn lines. It went on for months, and then she

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Speaker 1: did something that's a great lesson and for all of us.

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Speaker 1: She figured out what to do with this new reality.

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Speaker 1: Instead of trying to change it. Mary called a close

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Speaker 1: friend near her home in Martha's Vineyard, who also happens

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Speaker 1: to be a super talented songwriter. She said. She told him,

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Speaker 1: if I come over every day and sing these tunes

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Speaker 1: in my head, can you help me write them down

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Speaker 1: and make them into songs? And that's what they did.

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Speaker 1: In the meantime, Mary, who had never even played an instrument,

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Speaker 1: learned how to play, and she wrote hundreds of songs.

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Speaker 1: She then took the twelve best of them and sent

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Speaker 1: them to a lawyer in the music industry. But she

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Speaker 1: says she didn't want people to get weirded out by

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Speaker 1: Mary Steenbergen actress turning into Mary Steinbergen songwriter, so she

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Speaker 1: used her mother's maiden name, Nellie Wall to submit the songs.

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Speaker 1: The lawyer said he loved to meet her, and that's

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Speaker 1: when she told him who she was. He still wanted

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Speaker 1: to sign her. Mary says she went to Nashville and

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Speaker 1: the first few recording sessions were disastrous, like people wondered

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Speaker 1: why a fifty four year old actress was suddenly changing careers,

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Speaker 1: but she finally got the hang of it. For ten years,

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Speaker 1: she wrote and worked with other artists, and then in

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Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, she co wrote a song that a film

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Speaker 1: director heard and loved. Tom Harper was making an independent

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Speaker 1: musical drama called wild Rose. It was about a young

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Speaker 1: Scottish woman who dreamed of becoming a country singer. He

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Speaker 1: needed a song for the movie's emotional climax, the moment

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Speaker 1: when the main character finally understands that home isn't something

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Speaker 1: you run from, but something you carry with you. Tom

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Speaker 1: Harper listened to what Mary and her co writers had created.

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Speaker 1: He said the song called Glasgow No Place Like Home,

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Speaker 1: grabbed him by the heart the moment he heard it.

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Speaker 1: The song is about roots, belonging and the pull of

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Speaker 1: the place you call home. It's performed by the film star,

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Speaker 1: Irish actress and singer Jesse Buckley. Everybody fell in love

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Speaker 1: with it. The song won the Critics' Choice Movie Award

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Speaker 1: for Best Song. It was also shortlisted and seriously considered

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Speaker 1: for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. All this

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Speaker 1: from an actress who'd never been involved with music until

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Speaker 1: anesthesia left her with endless music in her head. The

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Speaker 1: brain is a puzzling thing, and Mary's doctors still having

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Speaker 1: come up with an explanation. Her path from acting to

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Speaker 1: songwriting is a reminder that creativity can show up in

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Speaker 1: unexpected ways. Rather than allowing yourself to feel victimized by

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Speaker 1: an unexpected event in your life, you can use that

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Speaker 1: change to forge a new path and a new way

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Speaker 1: to share your passion. Mary says she didn't fall out

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Speaker 1: of love with acting. She just discovered a two part

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Speaker 1: conversation within herself that showed her that her brain was

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Speaker 1: capable of far more than she'd ever dreamed. Mary Steinbergen says,

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Speaker 1: even at seventy three, her life is proof that we're

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Speaker 1: never finished becoming who we are, that the most extraordinary

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Speaker 1: chapter of your life might be the one you never

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Speaker 1: even planned for. I hope you're enjoying The Backstory with

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Speaker 1: Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow or subscribe

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Speaker 1: for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel

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Speaker 1: free to dm me if you have a story you'd

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Speaker 1: like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstories

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Speaker 1: a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group

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Speaker 1: and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser. Our

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Speaker 1: writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday.

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Speaker 1: Feel free to reach out to me with comments and

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Speaker 1: even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and

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Speaker 1: on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't

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Speaker 1: know you needed to know