Speaker 1: Music Saved Me.
Speaker 2: I trust that there's a collaboration going on that's beyond
Speaker 2: the wisdom that I have in.
Speaker 1: The moment that I'm writing something down.
Speaker 2: And so often I will write a song not even
Speaker 2: realizing that I'm writing it for something that's going to
Speaker 2: happen in the future. It's happened so many times that
Speaker 2: I totally trust that when I'm writing something and I'm
Speaker 2: just following it kind of blindly, like I wonder why
Speaker 2: that word popped into my head, I write it all
Speaker 2: down because there's something bigger than me that I can
Speaker 2: draw from.
Speaker 3: I'm Lynn Hoffman and welcome to the Music Save Me Podcast,
Speaker 3: the show where we highlight one of the greatest joys imaginable,
Speaker 3: the healing power of music. I talk with musicians of
Speaker 3: all different types who all talk about their personal stories
Speaker 3: and about their experience with the healing power of music.
Speaker 3: And on this episode, I get to talk to a
Speaker 3: musician who truly understands how music saves us. Beth Nielsen
Speaker 3: Chapman is a musician, a singer songwriter who has truly
Speaker 3: embraced musical diversity. Welcome Beth Nielsen Chapman to Music Saved Me.
Speaker 3: Your story so epitomizes what Music Saved Me podcast is
Speaker 3: all about. And we're so grateful to have you with
Speaker 3: us today.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. And I love the title
Speaker 2: of your podcast. It got me right away. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's what I preach.
Speaker 3: We got you when we reeled you in. It took
Speaker 3: a little while, but we got you here. I'm so grateful.
Speaker 3: My first question to you is when was the first
Speaker 3: moment in your life when you knew that music moved
Speaker 3: you and it would be your life calling.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, there's probably several of those, but I remember
Speaker 2: being kind of my pilot light came on around songs
Speaker 2: when I was probably eleven or twelve, when I was
Speaker 2: playing with a friend and I was over at her
Speaker 2: house and in the kitchen radio I heard Penny Lane
Speaker 2: for the first time, and it was shocking to me
Speaker 2: and just we were jumping on the bed and I
Speaker 2: was like, and I like got got off the bed
Speaker 2: and went wandering into the kitchen, stood in front of
Speaker 2: the radio and just was like mesmerized by that joy,
Speaker 2: you know, Benny Lane, you know, just and then I
Speaker 2: mean before that, I had been listening to my parents,
Speaker 2: you know, records, and I remember when Tijuana Brass and
Speaker 2: The Lonely Bowl came out and I was like five
Speaker 2: years old, I was like, oh, you know, these like
Speaker 2: records that I would just get in my head and
Speaker 2: I'd go around singing them. So I wasn't really thinking, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this for a living until way
Speaker 2: later than that. But I always felt just ignited by music.
Speaker 2: And as I got older, and you know, and I
Speaker 2: was a teenager and I started listening to all the
Speaker 2: singer songwriters at the seventies, and you know, it just
Speaker 2: became a complete and total necessary part.
Speaker 1: Of life to get through the stuff. From a very
Speaker 1: early age.
Speaker 3: I will have to say this, and you know, maybe
Speaker 3: people might disagree, but I think the seventies were like
Speaker 3: the pinnacle of music. Artists were together in a studio
Speaker 3: looking at each other, and yeah.
Speaker 1: It was pretty amazing.
Speaker 3: Do you recall us an experience or a concert experience
Speaker 3: that first connected you with, like maybe your favorite artist.
Speaker 2: You know, I didn't go to tons of concerts for
Speaker 2: some reason. I remember seeing Joni Mitchell, but I was
Speaker 2: up in the nosebleed seats and you know, could barely
Speaker 2: see her and it was just all echo up there.
Speaker 2: But I mean, as I came into the music business more.
Speaker 2: I mean I played in all kinds of different bands
Speaker 2: and stuff and just you know, it was just eating,
Speaker 2: drinking and sleeping music twenty four to seven. I signed
Speaker 2: my first publishing and record deal when I was fifteen,
Speaker 2: and my dad had to co sign it. We were
Speaker 2: living in Alabama. My dad was in the Air Force,
Speaker 2: so we moved around all through my childhood, but we'd
Speaker 2: ended up in Alabama and I remember begging him, Oh,
Speaker 2: this guy has a studio and he's going to get
Speaker 2: me a record deal. And my dad was like, you know,
Speaker 2: you gotta finish high school first. I'm like, yeah, but
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, so he got a lawyer, but
Speaker 2: he got a cattle lawyer, and you know, the guy
Speaker 2: just did you know he read the thing, was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it looks like she doesn't have to pay any money,
Speaker 2: So I guess it's okay, you know, like I should
Speaker 2: have had, Like I always tell people, get a music
Speaker 2: attorney because it's totally different.
Speaker 1: So, you know.
Speaker 2: But my first inkling of it being valuable was a
Speaker 2: couple of years later when that contract got sold to
Speaker 2: a real publishing company in Nashville, EMI and.
Speaker 1: They paid him, like, you know.
Speaker 2: Twelve fifteen thousand dollars for my fifty songs. They paid
Speaker 2: the guy that had signed me to the slave contract
Speaker 2: that didn't That wasn't fair. And I just went, Wow,
Speaker 2: this stuff is really valuable. And I still to this day,
Speaker 2: you know, when I'm talking to young songwriters who are
Speaker 2: struggling because you know, if you're just a songwriter, it's
Speaker 2: kind of hard to make a living right now, and
Speaker 2: I say, but don't worry. Your work is generating way
Speaker 2: more than what the trickle down that we're getting. It's
Speaker 2: just a temporary glitch in the system that'll get sorted
Speaker 2: out later. But know that the value of your work
Speaker 2: is that you're creating something that moves people and shifts
Speaker 2: their paradigm. And if they need to cry sometimes it'll
Speaker 2: help them cry. If they need to laugh, it'll help
Speaker 2: them laugh. It's really powerful stuff. Songs are really powerful
Speaker 2: little pieces of medicine that are out in the world
Speaker 2: that are healing people all day long, you know, whether
Speaker 2: it's making you just feel better or literally getting those
Speaker 2: tears to come to the surface that are stuck, you know,
Speaker 2: And I'm just amazed by it every day, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm amazed by it, and I'm so grateful that I
Speaker 2: get to do it, you know, for a living.
Speaker 3: It's so true and such great advice that you give
Speaker 3: about how it trickles down later not to worry about it.
Speaker 2: It's almost like a yeah, well, I mean, people want
Speaker 2: to do it as they're living, because they want to
Speaker 2: just wake up every day and write songs and get
Speaker 2: paid enough to live. And that's more rare right now,
Speaker 2: because it's just a different time in the music business,
Speaker 2: and there's it's sort of like the music business moved
Speaker 2: into a new house, but the plumbing from the old
Speaker 2: house is all that the songwriterer's got and they're all
Speaker 2: stuck in the basement. That's kind of what's happening. But
Speaker 2: that's not forever, you know. And what I tell young
Speaker 2: writers who go, well, what's the point of writing? The
Speaker 2: point of writing is your body of work. You're twenty something, now,
Speaker 2: get going start writing your songs right your whole life.
Speaker 2: So when you're in your seventies, you've covered that cave
Speaker 2: wall with what you experienced. If somebody comes in and
Speaker 2: sees your cave wall two thousand years after you died,
Speaker 2: they're going to know how you felt. And that's very valuable.
Speaker 2: It's valuable to you first and foremost, and it's valuable
Speaker 2: to anyone who comes in contact with what your expression
Speaker 2: is because anybody can participate in this amazing, magical thing,
Speaker 2: this gift that we have. Creativity is not something you have.
Speaker 2: There are not people that are more creative than other people.
Speaker 2: There's no such thing as that creativity is something you're in.
Speaker 2: It's like saying I am oxygen. No, I'm breathing oxygen.
Speaker 2: I'm using oxygen. Oxygen is keeping me alive. Creativity is
Speaker 2: like that, creativity is all around us. It's this sort
Speaker 2: of collective wisdom of thought and energy and shifts and whether.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's so much information in opening to getting comfortable.
Speaker 1: Not knowing what you're doing.
Speaker 2: When you're writing or painting or whatever creative thing you're doing,
Speaker 2: you're entering into a place of what's next. I don't know,
Speaker 2: sounds like maybe this, oh, or it could be that,
Speaker 2: And then the song will form itself. It will come
Speaker 2: to you, it will say here's what I am. Figure
Speaker 2: me out. And that's such an exciting journey to take,
Speaker 2: and I take it every time I write a song.
Speaker 2: And when I've written the songs that have healed me.
Speaker 2: Like after my first Tusban died in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: I wrote a whole album of songs about loss, but
Speaker 2: probably the big song from that collection of Sand and Water,
Speaker 2: And it's a song you know, that I wrote to
Speaker 2: get myself through the feeling of what do I do next.
Speaker 1: I didn't write it to save the world.
Speaker 2: I didn't write it for the woman who would write
Speaker 2: to me twenty years later and say, I just heard
Speaker 2: this song I lost my husband or i'd lost my child,
Speaker 2: and it's just helped me cry. You know, all the
Speaker 2: people who benefited from that song, I'm so grateful for.
Speaker 2: But I wrote it for one hundred percent selfish reasons,
Speaker 2: which I always want my writers. I'm like, right, for
Speaker 2: selfish reasons, because you're healing yourself. It's like it's kind
Speaker 2: of like put the oxygen mask on yourself before you
Speaker 2: try to help somebody else, because you need to work
Speaker 2: through that yourself and in the working through it. And
Speaker 2: as we created, we create things from all of the
Speaker 2: emotions of life.
Speaker 1: We put these little pieces of.
Speaker 2: Art that are medicinal out into the world and they
Speaker 2: go off and they get fat, and we have no
Speaker 2: control over it and it's none of our business really,
Speaker 2: but I'm grateful for it.
Speaker 3: Well, you boy, that was a long answer something No.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was going to say, podcast can end now.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's we're going to drop the mic. But
Speaker 3: you mentioned the road kind of builds itself in front
Speaker 3: of you if you make it for you, and you
Speaker 3: talk about the medicinal healing powers, and of course your
Speaker 3: song continues to inspire sand and water in international audiences.
Speaker 3: Can you share the story of the song of how
Speaker 3: you are moved by I'm sorry, Can you share with
Speaker 3: us how you were moved by the impact of that song,
Speaker 3: because it was pretty massive it still is, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: even the way that it came about.
Speaker 2: My first husband had when he was first diagnosed, he
Speaker 2: was given six weeks to live, and our son was
Speaker 2: about about twelve years old, and it was.
Speaker 1: Just crushing, you know.
Speaker 2: And he decided pretty early on that he was not
Speaker 2: going to let somebody put a cell by on his head.
Speaker 1: That's the way he put so he just.
Speaker 2: Said, give me what you got, the strongest stuff you got,
Speaker 2: and he was able to tolerate pretty hefty chemotherapy and
Speaker 2: got well enough to actually get a Bomera transplant, which
Speaker 2: you know, if he had been able to sustain not
Speaker 2: having the cancer come back a little bit longer, it
Speaker 2: would have given him another five or ten years. He
Speaker 2: had a very rare form of lymphoma, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: meant to be, and he did have the bow Mara
Speaker 2: transplant and then it came back within three months. So
Speaker 2: the second time he had six weeks to live, he
Speaker 2: literally had six you know, like they said, Okay, but
Speaker 2: this time it's more than likely. So in that transition
Speaker 2: he went through towards trying to live and working so
Speaker 2: hard to try to live, to learning to die. I mean,
Speaker 2: he shared that with so many friends, and so much
Speaker 2: richness of life was all swirling around us during that time,
Speaker 2: even though it was also very heartbreaking. And I just
Speaker 2: remember after he passed. I mean, one of our dear
Speaker 2: friends was Rodney Crowell, a great singer, a great songwriter,
Speaker 2: a producer, and he, you know, he and Ernest evidently
Speaker 2: had a little chat where they you know, I think
Speaker 2: Ernest said something like, hey, listen, she's gonna put the
Speaker 2: guitar in the closet because she's gonna think she can't
Speaker 2: be a single mom and a songwriter, touring artist. So
Speaker 2: just give her about a month and just call her
Speaker 2: up and just go over there and tell her you're
Speaker 2: coming over to write a song. And I promise you
Speaker 2: her her ego will outweigh her grief. And it worked
Speaker 2: perfectly because I was like, oh my god, Rodney's coming over,
Speaker 2: and I got got my guitar out and I just
Speaker 2: I better get something started, you know, because he was
Speaker 2: one of my heroes.
Speaker 1: Did you know that he had told him that beforehand? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I just knew that he called me up out of
Speaker 2: the blue and said, Hey, I'm gonna come over and
Speaker 2: let's let's get together. And right I was like, so
Speaker 2: I had this thing float out of me like pretty
Speaker 2: much perfectly written, although I recorded it kind of and
Speaker 2: just bloom, you know, in twenty and when he came over,
Speaker 2: I thought, it's not finished. In fact, I don't even
Speaker 2: know what it's talking about. And it had this line
Speaker 2: in it that said solid stone is just sand and
Speaker 2: water and a million years gone by, which I didn't
Speaker 2: think made any sense at all, goosebumps, and I just
Speaker 2: but it was like I was like going right over
Speaker 2: my head I wrote it down, but I didn't know
Speaker 2: what it meant. And I remember playing him the song, thinking, well,
Speaker 2: you know, we can work on it. It's not really finished,
Speaker 2: and he's like, just play it for me, and I
Speaker 2: played it for me. He goes, that's finished, and don't
Speaker 2: touch it like that. You may not touch that. That's
Speaker 2: perfect and I'm like, yeah, I'm not sure it makes
Speaker 2: any sense, and he goes, no, you will find out.
Speaker 2: You had two weeks from now, you're gonna you're going
Speaker 2: to suddenly realize what that line means. Just trust me,
Speaker 2: and so I and it did take me about a
Speaker 2: week to go, wait, that's a really that line is
Speaker 2: about transformation, you know. And in fact, on the album
Speaker 2: cover there's insight in the insert I'm standing in front
Speaker 2: of a boulder that's just massive, and grief is like
Speaker 2: this boulder that's set in front of you, and the
Speaker 2: universe is telling you you can't go over it, you
Speaker 2: can't go around it, you can't go under it. You
Speaker 2: have to go right through the middle of it. And
Speaker 2: you're like, how am I supposed to do that?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And the only way you could do it is if
Speaker 2: it were to dissolve back into sand and water. Well,
Speaker 2: when I wrote that song, I didn't have any inkling
Speaker 2: of what that was saying. And so I trust that
Speaker 2: there's a collaboration going on that's beyond the wisdom that.
Speaker 1: I have in the moment that I'm writing something down.
Speaker 1: And so often I will.
Speaker 2: Write a song not even realizing that I'm writing it
Speaker 2: for something that's going to happen in the future. It's
Speaker 2: happened so many times that I totally trust that. When
Speaker 2: I'm writing something and I'm just following it kind of blindly,
Speaker 2: like I wonder why that word popped into my head,
Speaker 2: I write it all down because there's something bigger than
Speaker 2: me that I can draw from that teaches me as
Speaker 2: I write the song, and that's to me, the most
Speaker 2: healing part of it for me. Besides having people tell
Speaker 2: me that it helped them. That's very healing for.
Speaker 1: Me too, I bet.
Speaker 3: And you know, a statistic I happen to read not
Speaker 3: long ago said that only one percent of all of
Speaker 3: us actually write down our goals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I can't even imagine.
Speaker 3: If you write down your goals and then they say
Speaker 3: if you write them down, then they're meant to happen.
Speaker 3: They will, They may not happen right away. And it's
Speaker 3: the same thing with writing songs, which are medicinal. I
Speaker 3: have to know, do you know what it is about music?
Speaker 3: Is it the words? Is it the vibration? Is it
Speaker 3: the sound? Have you figured out what exactly it is
Speaker 3: that is so healing for us?
Speaker 2: That's a really great question because people think, oh, it's
Speaker 2: the lyrics that makes it that made me cry, or
Speaker 2: it's the melody that made me cry, And I think
Speaker 2: it can be both or either. But I think the
Speaker 2: most powerful music and the most healing music combines the two.
Speaker 2: And I you know, when I teach songwriting, I often
Speaker 2: one of the exercises that I give my students is
Speaker 2: to go to the grocery store or go whenever you're
Speaker 2: out and about. You know, your job is to put
Speaker 2: your antenna up and listen to other people talking and
Speaker 2: listen to what's happening around you.
Speaker 1: Listen to this the melody of speech.
Speaker 2: So people don't realize that what melody you put on
Speaker 2: the words changes the meaning.
Speaker 1: So if I say what time are you coming over?
Speaker 2: That d d dada, that's very staccato, and it's got
Speaker 2: an insistence, and it's impatient and It's like I told
Speaker 2: you this three times and now I'm gonna ask you
Speaker 2: one more time. There's a whole movie in the melody
Speaker 2: of what time are you coming over? Right, there's a
Speaker 2: whole movie and how I said it, not just what
Speaker 2: I said. That's why texting can be so disastrous because
Speaker 2: you're you're writing, and nobody knows the melody of what
Speaker 2: you're saying or the tone of the tone. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: the melody and the tone to me are the same thing.
Speaker 2: But if you say what time are you coming over?
Speaker 2: That da da D D D. So that melody where
Speaker 2: you go you coming over? That's like come on over baby,
Speaker 2: you know. So there's a whole other movie. So how
Speaker 2: oh you use the melody and the words together is
Speaker 2: what really propels Now in the Sand and Water song,
Speaker 2: there was this this song organized itself. I just kind
Speaker 2: of like Waylon Jennings used to say, I didn't write it.
Speaker 2: I just wrote it down. It just went push right
Speaker 2: through me. And when you go through tremendous trauma or
Speaker 2: you know, deep sadness, you're much more open to this,
Speaker 2: to you know, to the access to this creative flow,
Speaker 2: this river that's winding around us all the time that
Speaker 2: we can tap into.
Speaker 1: And you know, the melody was like.
Speaker 2: All alone, no, no, no, no, all alone.
Speaker 1: I sat and cried all alone.
Speaker 2: And it has this repetition. It's almost like, you know,
Speaker 2: if you ever go to a great massage therapist, they
Speaker 2: don't just crunch into the inner part of your shoulder.
Speaker 2: They start lightly and then they go a little deeper.
Speaker 2: Then they go a little deeper, and so that even
Speaker 2: the melody of that song. I watch audiences where there's
Speaker 2: always a couple of tough customers, you know, that are
Speaker 2: just like not going to cry, and then you get
Speaker 2: to this point and then they they then they cry,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's it's fascinating because the song has
Speaker 2: a healing quality that organize itself. I don't claim having
Speaker 2: figured it out. I just notice it on the back end,
Speaker 2: like looking back, going wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 3: Well, there's all these sayings that you don't really realize
Speaker 3: until you get older. Hindsight is always twenty twenty and
Speaker 3: you can go back and look and you know there's
Speaker 3: a pattern. And so when you speak, you speak with
Speaker 3: conviction and knowledge because you had that history, which you
Speaker 3: know it's always like this little light Oh now, I
Speaker 3: know why they say that, or why that song said that,
Speaker 3: or you.
Speaker 1: Know, I did a thing I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've ever listened to The Moth,
Speaker 2: which is a radio show that tells story, people tell
Speaker 2: stories from all over the world.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. So I that down on the Moth.
Speaker 2: If you put my name in, you'll see a couple
Speaker 2: of you'll see two times that I've done The Moth.
Speaker 2: One where I was talking about a song called seven
Speaker 2: Shades of Blue, which was written at the same time
Speaker 2: as the Sand and Water song. And it's a twelve
Speaker 2: minute story I can't tell you now, but it's a
Speaker 2: really fascinating story about how I wrote half of it,
Speaker 2: you know, way ahead of time, before my husband was
Speaker 2: even diagnosed.
Speaker 1: But it's all about going through this loss.
Speaker 2: And he loved this song and he tried to get
Speaker 2: me to finish it, and I finished it the.
Speaker 1: Last week of his life. You know.
Speaker 2: He made me write the third verse, you know, from
Speaker 2: his death pacing where's my song? You know, and I'm like, geez,
Speaker 2: I've been a little busy, like my you know, my
Speaker 2: life's been a little crazy. Anyway, it's a whole story
Speaker 2: about it, and it's a really interesting perspective. It's kind
Speaker 2: of similar to what we're talking about. But you know,
Speaker 2: I've learned to trust that songs are are kind of
Speaker 2: glimpses into the future. Sometimes when I'm writing something and
Speaker 2: I just feel compelled to put a certain kind of
Speaker 2: line in there, but I'm not sure why. I don't
Speaker 2: know why I wanted to rhyme with that word, and
Speaker 2: I get into kind of a very loose state of
Speaker 2: of openness and I write down all the weird things
Speaker 2: that come through. Like if I'm writing with somebody, they go,
Speaker 2: why are you writing that now? And that's not right,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I know, but it's on the way
Speaker 2: to something. It's got a thing, you know. And inact,
Speaker 2: a great example of that is I was writing This Kiss,
Speaker 2: which was a huge hit for Faith Hill put myself
Speaker 2: through college. I wrote that with Annie Roboff and Robin Lerner,
Speaker 2: and we've written the first verse and this kind of
Speaker 2: channel thing and then this great chorus, and we had
Speaker 2: this this kiss, this kiss, and then we had to
Speaker 2: write the second verse. And if you've written a really
Speaker 2: good song, it satisfies right at the end of the
Speaker 2: first chorus, like you've got the whole songs really in
Speaker 2: the first half. Then you have to come up with
Speaker 2: the second half and say something fresh, but it has
Speaker 2: to relate to the first half, but it's got to
Speaker 2: be different.
Speaker 1: And we just couldn't get started. We were like, oh,
Speaker 1: I can't get the second verse.
Speaker 2: What are we going to say? We don't want to
Speaker 2: repeat the same thing. And then they were like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. And then I say, well,
Speaker 2: all I know to do is just start at the
Speaker 2: beginning and just sing up to it and just see.
Speaker 1: What flies out of our mouth. And we turned on
Speaker 1: the tape recorder and we're like really.
Speaker 2: Then we get all the way to the end and
Speaker 2: we go this kiss, this kiss, unstoppable, this kiss, this kiss,
Speaker 2: And then I went Cleopatra was a snowflake.
Speaker 1: They were like, what I said, I know, it's not weird.
Speaker 1: Cleopatra was a snowflake. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: And they were like, ah, yeah, no, Cleopatra was not
Speaker 2: a snowflake, and we're not putting that in our song.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, oh, I know, I know, I know,
Speaker 2: but there's a reason I blurted that out, because why
Speaker 2: would I say that. That's so random, you know, And
Speaker 2: they were like, we're going to lunch, but what happened?
Speaker 2: They're like, bye bye. They left me there for like
Speaker 2: a half an hour and they came back. I was
Speaker 2: still going Cleopatra had a snowflake. Cleopatra and Cleopatra and
Speaker 2: the snowflake. I'm like, I couldn't make it work. And
Speaker 2: Annie got right up in my face and she said
Speaker 2: that we're not putting Disney characters in our song. And
Speaker 2: I went, oh, wait, Disney, hold on, it's not Cleopatra.
Speaker 2: She wasn't Disney. It's a Cinderella, and it's not a snowflake.
Speaker 2: It's uh snow White. Cinderella said to snow White, how
Speaker 2: does love get so off?
Speaker 1: Course?
Speaker 2: And that then we were blasting off and writing that
Speaker 2: second verse, which is about Cinderella talking to snow White
Speaker 2: and what is this love thing? It's just such a
Speaker 2: pain and love. But you know, which just was so funny.
Speaker 2: You know, it's Cleopatra. Cinderella said to snow White, how
Speaker 2: does love get so off? Core?
Speaker 1: So all I wanted was a white night with a good.
Speaker 2: Heart, soft touch, fast horse, ride me off into the sunset,
Speaker 2: baby up forever yours. I mean, I love that second
Speaker 2: verse if somebody said, how did you come up with that?
Speaker 1: I said, how I came up with that?
Speaker 2: I got a big clue from them, from the ether
Speaker 2: of the other side of creative wisdom. You know, it's
Speaker 2: waiting to write songs through us. But you have to
Speaker 2: be able to handle the Cleopatra was a snowflake weird
Speaker 2: part and go.
Speaker 3: Wow, you know, and not be upset when someone may
Speaker 3: not love the idea to be strong in your conviction
Speaker 3: and listen to your instinct.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean I was about to cave.
Speaker 2: I mean, not every one of those crazy lines ends
Speaker 2: up being a thing. But what's really weird is one
Speaker 2: of my students recently sent me a link on Amazon
Speaker 2: and there were tons of snowflakes with Cleopatra on them.
Speaker 1: I was like, what around that time?
Speaker 2: No, just now, it's like there's like all these like
Speaker 2: Christmas to ornaments with Cleopatra.
Speaker 1: Anyway by smelling hit coming, I know it's too crazy.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe I can justify that line, but the songs,
Speaker 2: but the song even like that, you know a song
Speaker 2: that the power of that song is the joy of
Speaker 2: getting kissed correctly, I mean that just as a specific
Speaker 2: what are we going to write about you know, what
Speaker 2: does it feel like to get kissed? Right?
Speaker 1: Which is the thing? Yes, it is little pieces.
Speaker 2: Of being a human is to me what songs are about,
Speaker 2: from loss to joy to craziness, and you know it's
Speaker 2: they're all all healing.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back with more of the Music Saved
Speaker 3: Me Podcast. And by the way, if you like this podcast,
Speaker 3: you are going to love our companion podcast called Taken
Speaker 3: a Walk. It's hosted by my dear friend buzz Night
Speaker 3: and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 3: Welcome back to the Music Saved Me Podcast, the podcast
Speaker 3: where we discuss the healing powers of music with some
Speaker 3: of the biggest names in music, as well as up
Speaker 3: and comers. Being a cancer survivor yourself losing your first
Speaker 3: husband cancer and having these moments that you still persevered
Speaker 3: through beyond persevered. Can you share how the experience impacted
Speaker 3: your life in songwriting? How are you able to get
Speaker 3: through such difficult personal times?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean giving, you know, writing my way through it? Literally,
Speaker 2: I mean sometimes I wouldn't. I mean when Ernest finally
Speaker 2: passed away, I was immediately into like I have to
Speaker 2: be a single mom, I have to take care of
Speaker 2: my son.
Speaker 1: I can't just fall apart and cry, so I didn't
Speaker 1: cry for like a year, and when.
Speaker 2: I went into the studio to start recording, I started
Speaker 2: falling apart, which made it very hard to record because
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, so grief has its own timeline.
Speaker 2: We really can't tell it when it's going to hit us,
Speaker 2: you know. And going through like six years after Ernest died,
Speaker 2: I ended up making a record called Deeper Still. In
Speaker 2: the last day of mixing, literally I found out I
Speaker 2: had stage two breast cancer. What was amazing is that
Speaker 2: every song on that album sounded as if I wrote
Speaker 2: it after I went through breast cancer. There were songs
Speaker 2: about resilience and staying positive and like so many songs
Speaker 2: it was crazy, but one song in particular, and first
Speaker 2: of all, I was terrified for my son, who was
Speaker 2: now going off to college, and I had to tell
Speaker 2: him before he went to college that when you see
Speaker 2: me at Thanksgiving, I'm not going to have any hair,
Speaker 2: and then trying to convince him that I'm going to
Speaker 2: be okay, you know, But I didn't know I was
Speaker 2: going to be okay. I was terrified that I wasn't
Speaker 2: going to be okay. And he was so amazing. He
Speaker 2: was like I remember telling him and I was sitting
Speaker 2: on the couch and I was just like, you know,
Speaker 2: I just don't want to have this conversation.
Speaker 1: But he knew something was up. He could tell something
Speaker 1: was going on.
Speaker 2: And I remember him pulling me and putting my head
Speaker 2: on his show, on his chest and saying, You're going
Speaker 2: to be okay, Mom, You're going to be okay. And
Speaker 2: I just like, wow, you know, and I was okay,
Speaker 2: and he and actually seeing me get well and I
Speaker 2: was going through that journey together helped us both. Heal
Speaker 2: a lot through through the grief of losing his dad.
Speaker 2: But one of the songs I wrote two years before
Speaker 2: that was called Every December Sky, and I remember when
Speaker 2: I was writing it, thinking, is this kind of an
Speaker 2: additional song about losing my husband? Because it kind of
Speaker 2: felt like I could be singing about that, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't sure. I just loved the song and song is
Speaker 2: about resilience. And I was sitting on the couch in
Speaker 2: the wintertime, is that all the leaves had come off
Speaker 2: the trees and all my hair had fallen out kind
Speaker 2: of simultaneously, and I was looking out the window and
Speaker 2: it was a freezing day and I was really at
Speaker 2: a low point and I started just singing the song
Speaker 2: in my head, like it came on like a radio station.
Speaker 2: And it's a song that says, every December sky must
Speaker 2: lose its faith and leaves and dream of the spring
Speaker 2: inside the trees, How heavy the empty heart, how light
Speaker 2: the heart that's full. Sometimes I have to trust what
Speaker 2: I can't know. And I realized, wait, that's like I
Speaker 2: needed to hear that, you know, And it's about believing
Speaker 2: that you're going to get through this scary time and
Speaker 2: knowing there's spring inside the trees and it's going to
Speaker 2: be spring again and you're going to be okay. And
Speaker 2: it gave me such a sense of connection and you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no way that you can get go
Speaker 2: through cancer and not at some point feel like God
Speaker 2: has abandoned me. I mean, I had that feeling come
Speaker 2: and go, you know, and I'd pray and I'd like, oh,
Speaker 2: but I felt abandoned, like my own body abandoned, Like
Speaker 2: why didn't I Why did my body malfunction? You know?
Speaker 2: And all that and that song really centered me back
Speaker 2: into a sense of calmness and assurance that I was
Speaker 2: being taken care of that no matter what happened, I
Speaker 2: was going to be taking care of everybody I loved
Speaker 2: was going to be okay. And I just calmed me down,
Speaker 2: you know. And the power of that song to me
Speaker 2: is very personal. But I know that when I play
Speaker 2: that song, it's like one that I get requests for
Speaker 2: a lot, because people just identify with that sense of
Speaker 2: you know, as freezing as it is, Bazzes right now,
Speaker 2: you know, there's there's always a place where hope is
Speaker 2: residing and growing and blooming again.
Speaker 1: You were writing your own medicine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, your own worst script was literally I was literally
Speaker 3: I mean on yourself, forgive me answer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I didn't you know the fact that I
Speaker 1: wrote it for myself.
Speaker 2: And I knew that's exactly what had happened was kind
Speaker 2: of like a reassurance that something bigger than myself was was.
Speaker 3: Keeping track and watching over me, you know. And was
Speaker 3: that from your history of music?
Speaker 2: And John, I mean just I mean, I've done it
Speaker 2: over and over again, but I didn't realize I was
Speaker 2: doing it until I got to that point. Like I
Speaker 2: did it with several of the songs on the Sand
Speaker 2: and Water album, which I wrote prior to my husband
Speaker 2: even finding out he had cancer. I was already writing
Speaker 2: half of that album. And you know, so I've just
Speaker 2: learned to understand that there's a very magical mystery thing
Speaker 2: going on here, and we are, you know, some of
Speaker 2: us are more aware of it than others. But even
Speaker 2: if you're not aware of it, it's still doing its magic.
Speaker 2: It's just magical, you know. And another amazing, amazing thing
Speaker 2: because I've loved teaching and I've always taught people anybody
Speaker 2: can can access this thing with a little bit of
Speaker 2: help and some tricks that I like to teach, you know,
Speaker 2: how to show up and how to experience this creative flow.
Speaker 2: And I thought, you know, all of a sudden, like
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, for about three months, I
Speaker 2: stopped being able to write, and I just couldn't figure out.
Speaker 1: What was going on.
Speaker 2: I would sit down and I'd have melodies. I could
Speaker 2: get melodies, but I couldn't I couldn't get the lyrics
Speaker 2: to come. And I've never had that problem, and I
Speaker 2: was absolutely depressed.
Speaker 1: At a certain point.
Speaker 2: I was thinking, gosh, you know, maybe there is a
Speaker 2: muse and it just wanders off and you don't have
Speaker 2: it anymore. And I've been selling this bill of goods
Speaker 2: to people all these years. I was just having amused
Speaker 2: and now I don't, and you know, I just was
Speaker 2: so perplexing. And I remember waking up one morning during
Speaker 2: that time with this really weird kind of like a
Speaker 2: Tibetan bowl in my head, you know, glonging couldn't hear
Speaker 2: pitch go do a big show on the weekend, and
Speaker 2: I just call I called my on cologist because I
Speaker 2: didn't even know who to call. I'm like, I've got
Speaker 2: this weird thing. And he, you know, turned me over
Speaker 2: to a neurologist and they did an MRI and I
Speaker 2: remember him coming around the corner and saying, so, have
Speaker 2: you had.
Speaker 1: Any trouble with language?
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, I haven't been able to write
Speaker 2: lyrics for about four months, which has been really upsetting,
Speaker 2: you know. And he goes, oh, yeah, you wouldn't be
Speaker 2: able to write lyrics with this thing. I'm like, what thing?
Speaker 2: And he goes, will you have a brain tumor? I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: I have a brain tumor. That's not possible because I
Speaker 2: have My husband died a cancer and then I had cancer,
Speaker 2: so kind of done. I'm not really up for anything.
Speaker 2: You know, I shouldn't have anything like a brain tumor
Speaker 2: right now, you know.
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: And he's like, and it's pressing against the left frontal lobe,
Speaker 2: which is your language center.
Speaker 1: So we're kind of surprised you can talk.
Speaker 2: And I'm like really, he goes, yeah, it's going to
Speaker 2: have to come out, and it would definitely encroach on
Speaker 2: your ability to write lyrics.
Speaker 1: I was so relieved that there was a reason that
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god, this is great. He goes,
Speaker 1: did you hear the part about where you have a braindommer? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's so great, it's like amazing.
Speaker 2: And I remember just thinking, Okay, I'm going to get
Speaker 2: on the other side of this thing, and I'm not
Speaker 2: going to have to never write a song again. And
Speaker 2: I mean that was one of the big benefits of it.
Speaker 2: Although it was terrifying, but everything went great. It was
Speaker 2: early enough, and anyway, as I got back into the
Speaker 2: world coming through this anesthesion, I'm having this weird dreamy
Speaker 2: vision of these camels going over sand dunes and I'm
Speaker 2: thinking what and I realized they're not camels, they're actually syllables.
Speaker 2: And then I realized, wait, that's the third verse of
Speaker 2: the song I've been trying to finish for like four
Speaker 2: months that I've been sitting there and banging my head
Speaker 2: into nothing, you know.
Speaker 1: And my mom goes, are you okay, honey? What do
Speaker 1: you need? She was like standing over me. I'm like, good,
Speaker 1: a pencil.
Speaker 3: Wait, you're saying anesthesia when you came out of surgery,
Speaker 3: you said get a pencil?
Speaker 1: You knew, right, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2: I was saying I was coming out of anesthesia, and
Speaker 2: I was having the third verse to one of the
Speaker 2: songs that had been really driving me nuts that I've
Speaker 2: been trying to finish. And what it showed me was
Speaker 2: that all that work I was doing, showing up and
Speaker 2: trying to write lyrics, they were getting written, but they
Speaker 2: were kind of lining up down the hallway, couldn't get
Speaker 2: through the portal because this thing was in the way. Wow.
Speaker 2: And it showed me that creative flow and creativity never stops.
Speaker 1: And the fast.
Speaker 2: You know, the quickness that I finished everything with wass
Speaker 2: almost like I was just getting the mail, like when
Speaker 2: you go on vacation and you come home and then
Speaker 2: there's a ton of mail. It was like that, you know,
Speaker 2: it was just like, Okay, so there is this thing
Speaker 2: we have access to, and you know, people say, my god,
Speaker 2: you've gone through this stuff and you know, but yeah,
Speaker 2: but every every part of it is just been.
Speaker 1: Amazing to look back and say. And then there's that, you.
Speaker 2: Know, sure, And I think creativity and art and the
Speaker 2: beauty of art and music and all the ways that
Speaker 2: we manifest stuff through our grief and through our happiness
Speaker 2: and through everything. You know, that's the great gift we
Speaker 2: have to give each other and and we use it
Speaker 2: to get better.
Speaker 3: I think I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, you're not only.
Speaker 3: You're magical, like you're you're a seer or I should
Speaker 3: call you Beth Nielsen Chatman, Nostradamus.
Speaker 2: It's like, really, I'm just I'm just wandering around, bumping
Speaker 2: into things.
Speaker 1: And then I have a lot of words that a lot.
Speaker 3: Going on though too, to that you've been able to
Speaker 3: maneuver around in your life to still show up and
Speaker 3: smile and put out such great energy and it's such
Speaker 3: beautiful music to help others. What is it like when
Speaker 3: you see you talked earlier about you know, there's always
Speaker 3: a couple of stragglers in the audience. You haven't quite
Speaker 3: got there yet, but then you see that happen. How
Speaker 3: does that make you feel when you get those people
Speaker 3: to see what you're putting out?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm really not trying to get anybody to do anything.
Speaker 2: That's part of the To me, that's part of the
Speaker 2: practice of being a performer and singing. In fact, I
Speaker 2: teach a whole singing thing which is called vocal presence.
Speaker 2: And I'm not a proponent of over singing. I like
Speaker 2: to speak on pitchin rhythm. I don't really like to
Speaker 2: get too calisthetics, you know, like, oh you know. And
Speaker 2: I feel like, for instance, a song like Sand and Water,
Speaker 2: the less you try to sing it with any drama,
Speaker 2: the more powerful it is because everybody's in a different place,
Speaker 2: and there will be people who listen to that song
Speaker 2: and really appreciate it who don't cry. You know, not
Speaker 2: everybody cries, but people who have pushed grief down that
Speaker 2: sometimes will just go oh, you know, like that'll do it.
Speaker 2: And I feel like I'm the messenger and my job
Speaker 2: is not to overly amp the message, just let it
Speaker 2: be what it is. It's powerful enough as a thing
Speaker 2: to hear that doesn't need me to put a catch
Speaker 2: in my voice or try to show you how sad
Speaker 2: it is. Like I sing it almost neutrally because I'm
Speaker 2: honoring the power of the song to deliver its whole thing.
Speaker 2: And you know, in twenty twenty two, believe it or not,
Speaker 2: my second husband, Bob, who I married in twenty eleven.
Speaker 2: I met him four years after Ernest died, and then
Speaker 2: it took until that was like nineteen ninety eight. Took
Speaker 2: until twenty eleven for us to get married. We had
Speaker 2: a wonderful journey together, and he passed away in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two. He had leukemia. And I remember when I
Speaker 2: first met him and he was trying to get me
Speaker 2: to go out with him, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm not really, you know, it's like I don't think so,
Speaker 2: and he was like, I promise you, I will let
Speaker 2: you die first. That was like a running joke with us,
Speaker 2: and so when he got leukemia, he's like, don't worry,
Speaker 2: I got this.
Speaker 1: We're going to get rid of it.
Speaker 2: And it was actually one of the more curable kinds,
Speaker 2: and it kept coming back, and ultimately he passed away
Speaker 2: and you know, he was so he was so brilliant,
Speaker 2: and he was so funny. The last couple of weeks,
Speaker 2: you know, we were similarly to Ernest, you know, like
Speaker 2: kind of going towards death with a kind of a
Speaker 2: staying present with it, you know, like laughing about it,
Speaker 2: crying about it, being in that place, not acting like
Speaker 2: it's not real, but also living every single moment together
Speaker 2: that we could, you know, and learning. I mean, I
Speaker 2: learned so much from both of those experiences about how
Speaker 2: to live.
Speaker 1: And I remember Bob saying you cannot.
Speaker 2: Can't because I had all these shows booked for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three and he was December in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: when he died, and he said, please don't cancel.
Speaker 1: Your tour next year.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, you know, I don't know how
Speaker 2: entertaining I'm going to be after my second husband dies
Speaker 2: of cancer.
Speaker 1: I mean, how am I going to you know?
Speaker 2: And you know, just to give you a sense of
Speaker 2: his sense of humor, he said, well I think you
Speaker 2: should do it.
Speaker 1: I think he's just what else are you going to do?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not going to sit around and cry.
Speaker 2: Go out there, do your song, do sand and water
Speaker 2: you know, let people just share it with them. You know,
Speaker 2: your people will understand and I'll appreciate. I thought I
Speaker 2: couldn't see how that would work. And then I had
Speaker 2: this one big show coming up in Nashville at the
Speaker 2: Franklin Theater, and it was the first one I would
Speaker 2: have had to cancel. He goes, just tell me, just
Speaker 2: promise me, you'll do that one show. And at this time,
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't know if he'd still be here
Speaker 2: when the show happened. But he passed away four days
Speaker 2: before the show. And then I felt like okay, and
Speaker 2: I got Rodney Crowe, my old friend, to come and
Speaker 2: be my stand in in case I lost my nerve.
Speaker 2: And I put a little note on the all the
Speaker 2: seats and I told the audience, Okay, here's the deal,
Speaker 2: and I explained, my husband just passed away.
Speaker 1: He really wanted me to do the show.
Speaker 2: I have no idea whether I can do this show,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to give it a shot. And it
Speaker 2: was just the most powerful, amazing, loving thing to be surrounded.
Speaker 2: I mean, it makes me cry by this group of
Speaker 2: people that came, and some of them didn't have any
Speaker 2: idea they were going to.
Speaker 1: See this show.
Speaker 2: You know, they thought it was going to come hear
Speaker 2: me do this gets and all my songs, and it
Speaker 2: was doing sand and Water and having my son come
Speaker 2: up and sing the harmony with me, and you know,
Speaker 2: it just made me realize, this is what I should
Speaker 2: be doing.
Speaker 1: And whether I'm crying through it.
Speaker 2: Or laughing through it, this is what I'm supposed to
Speaker 2: be doing. And I didn't cancel a single show. And
Speaker 2: it was really, you know, an amazing journey to to
Speaker 2: take my sort of active grief out into the world.
Speaker 2: And you know, I mean i'd laugh and you know,
Speaker 2: we I don't actually cry on stage, but most of
Speaker 2: the audience get gets a chance to go.
Speaker 1: Who you know.
Speaker 2: And and I didn't really set out to be any
Speaker 2: kind of musical missionary by any by any stretch. And
Speaker 2: when you say, oh, you're magical, I don't think I'm magical.
Speaker 2: I think it's magical. I think all of this is magical,
Speaker 2: and some of us are able to go.
Speaker 1: Yes, it is. I can feel it because I'm aware.
Speaker 2: I'm aware of it, and others maybe don't so much
Speaker 2: put it in that terms. But I don't think anybody
Speaker 2: is unable to access the magic. It's just a matter
Speaker 2: of whether you have a way of doing you know,
Speaker 2: like you learn to do it or you start to
Speaker 2: see it.
Speaker 1: It's all around.
Speaker 3: Us all the time, Yes, and we need to tap
Speaker 3: into it more. Speaking of all of this, it's just
Speaker 3: mind boggling what you just said to me.
Speaker 1: I know it is.
Speaker 3: It's you're just a mere mortal. And yet the way
Speaker 3: that you speak about how you're living your life through
Speaker 3: all of this potential tragedy or you know, a life
Speaker 3: of just depression. How what advice for those listening right
Speaker 3: now who maybe going through something and they're hearing you
Speaker 3: and they still hear a smile in your voice, and
Speaker 3: I can imagine still.
Speaker 1: It's still fun.
Speaker 2: There's still funny stuff, sort of the saddest things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been trying to I forgot to. I forgot to
Speaker 2: actually tell you that one of the things I was
Speaker 2: going to finish and I forgot to do it was
Speaker 2: when I was having these conversations with Bob about whether
Speaker 2: or not I should do the show.
Speaker 1: I said, look, you know you've been to my show's Bob.
Speaker 2: I mean, I talk about I sing my songs and
Speaker 2: kind of do this chronicle of my life. I talk
Speaker 2: about losing earnest. I talk about going through breast cancer,
Speaker 2: I sing a song about that. Talk about my brain tumor,
Speaker 2: I sing a song about that. How am I going
Speaker 2: to add another.
Speaker 1: Husband who died? How does that? You know? And he's
Speaker 1: a psychologist and he's like, hmm, very good point.
Speaker 2: Let me think about that. Hmm okay, And he comes
Speaker 2: back to me and he goes, I think you should
Speaker 2: drop the brain.
Speaker 1: Tumor can't be break you know.
Speaker 2: So he was from New Jersey, so I mean York.
Speaker 2: So well, it's not always funny. It's not you know.
Speaker 2: There is a deep joy that I feel and a
Speaker 2: deep gratefulness, you know, like I say, having gone through
Speaker 2: chemo and all my hair fell out and knows terribly
Speaker 2: upset at the time, but you know what now that
Speaker 2: I'm I have like there's no such thing as a
Speaker 2: bad hair day.
Speaker 1: Ever. Any hair is a good hair day, any hair
Speaker 1: at all, beautiful hair. By the way. Oh it's kind
Speaker 1: of a mess today, but yeah.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I just feel like when you have
Speaker 2: the perspective of the parameters of life experience part of
Speaker 2: what I think you have to well for me, I
Speaker 2: will only speak for myself. I mean I have to.
Speaker 2: I have to acknowledge it and look at it. I
Speaker 2: can't try to evade the feelings of sadness. When a
Speaker 2: feeling of sadness comes up, I say thank you, and
Speaker 2: this sucks, but okay, thank you. I'm gonna and so
Speaker 2: a wave. It's all of its waves and it's not
Speaker 2: going to be there. The thing about the worst part
Speaker 2: of grief, especially if you're really really raw with it,
Speaker 2: is when you're in one of those waves of grief,
Speaker 2: you think it's never gonna end. This is how I'm
Speaker 2: gonna feel for the rest of my life, and it's intolerable,
Speaker 2: and then it resolves, and then you have to remember
Speaker 2: that was a wave. It had to beginning, a middle,
Speaker 2: and an end, and there will be another one and
Speaker 2: it will also lead back into joy. That's the only
Speaker 2: way that I can express it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a beautiful expression. And I'm so grateful. It's
Speaker 3: taken me a while to get you here. I know
Speaker 3: it's been crazy, yet I'm so glad we finally got
Speaker 3: to do this. Me too, and to me you in person,
Speaker 3: and you're just such a shining light. And just keep
Speaker 3: inspiring and keep doing what you're doing. I have one
Speaker 3: last question for you, because it's just hit me. Why
Speaker 3: do you continue to do what you do every day
Speaker 3: in terms of sharing and teaching, And there's got to
Speaker 3: be a reason.
Speaker 1: I think it's.
Speaker 2: You know, one of my drugs of choice, okay, is
Speaker 2: the drug of feeling someone else kind of get their pilot,
Speaker 2: like relt if they've lost it or if they've never
Speaker 2: had it. Lit That to me is such a feeling
Speaker 2: of I feel so grateful to be able to be
Speaker 2: a part of that. It's, you know, there's something about
Speaker 2: feeling like you're I don't know, maybe it's just feeling
Speaker 2: like you're being useful to someone else. And not everybody
Speaker 2: has the same reaction to anything. And I think one
Speaker 2: of the things I've learned is I can't have no
Speaker 2: control over whether or not anything I say or do
Speaker 2: is going to help them. Maybe they're not in a
Speaker 2: place where they're ready to hear what I have to
Speaker 2: say or what it is. But the music goes on
Speaker 2: all by itself. It's like I write a song and
Speaker 2: it goes out in the world and it's got its
Speaker 2: own little power source, and somebody tells somebody to go
Speaker 2: listen to that song, and then they write me, you know,
Speaker 2: And I mean, it's just it's like finding out you
Speaker 2: win the lottery in little little lotteries all the time
Speaker 2: when that happens because I didn't write the song to
Speaker 2: In fact, if you try to write a song to
Speaker 2: help other people, it usually sounds very flat. It's and
Speaker 2: I tell my songwriting students all the time, I want
Speaker 2: you to write selfishly.
Speaker 1: I want you to write to help you get out
Speaker 1: of the cage of whatever you're you know.
Speaker 2: And and that's what makes it really powerful, you know,
Speaker 2: just telling telling me about you. Don't try to about me,
Speaker 2: don't try to fix me, just tell me how to
Speaker 2: how you got fixed within yourself.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It just as evolved as something that I'm very drawn to.
Speaker 2: And and it's it's it's a The world is full
Speaker 2: of so much stuff that we have to struggle against.
Speaker 3: Well, you may have been a part of it. You
Speaker 3: may have been selfless selfish in writing, but in your
Speaker 3: life you are selfless for sharing all of it. And
Speaker 3: we're so grateful that you came to share.
Speaker 1: I love sharing it as you can tell it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I feel the same way. I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: infringing on someone else's time.
Speaker 1: Right now, so I don't want to.
Speaker 3: I could talk to you all day long, but thank
Speaker 3: you so much for sharing your story and I hope
Speaker 3: that it brings some joy to whoever was listening to
Speaker 3: us speak today because you're just amazing and thank you,
Speaker 3: thanks so much, and.
Speaker 1: Please check in on you.
Speaker 2: I will, and thank you for this podcast. I'm going
Speaker 2: to go listen to all the other ones now.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone will be as good as this one.
Speaker 3: Oh well, thanks Beth, thank you,