Behind The Song

“LEARNING HOW TO LOSE”

Streaming Now Here

This song honestly took a few years to write. Maybe I’ve been writing it all my life. For me, it took a long time to realize that admitting defeat is something you have to learn. There is power in saying ”I didn’t win this one”. Life is humbling in these moments and I try to reach for the grace and courage to accept wherever I find myself.

This song has an interesting origin story. It began when I was doing press for my “Rivers & Roads” EP on WMOT 89.5FM. It’s a great radio station based in Nashville and I had recorded an interview with host Ana Lee for a segment called “Liner Notes”.

When the segment aired a songwriter called John Capek (also living in Nashville) was listening. After hearing the interview, he sent me an email introducing himself and asked if I was interested in co-writing at some point. The funny part about this is I knew exactly who he was.

John is a well established songwriter having penned hits for Cher, Bonnie Raitt and hit songs like “Rhythm of my Heart” for Rod Stewart. I had attended a songwriting panel in Melbourne, Australia many years ago that he had done and I remember that day well. What a small world.

I responded to John and we set up a cowrite in Nashville. When I’m writing with someone for the first time, I often just bring in a song title, or sometimes a chorus. For this session, I had written most of the lyric and shared it with him. It was a subject that has been on my mind for a long time. After a few hours we had the song worked up and like a lot of the songs I write, I continued to work on it after that day and changed a few chords and such. Finally this song was done and soon after this I recorded a final demo.

When it came time to record, Howard and I knew it was ok to lean into the classic sounds like Elton John, Fairport Convention and 1970’s songwriters. To round out the song we brought in a group of folk singers to sing BGV’s. This really helped to add a layer of “band” texture to the track.