Behind the Music
Desperate Dimes - demo
My next song, Desperate Dimes (click here for a sneak peak!), will be released September 4th, 2026!
While Desperate Dimes is my third release, it’s actually the first song I wrote. It was early 2025, and the medical research world had just been plunged into absolute chaos. Not only had I just survived another PSC complication (which went undetected for years, it was an incredible fight to get the care I needed), I also work in medical research! Suddenly, I didn’t know if any of the research I’d been working on was actually going to be finished so it could help people, and I didn’t know if I was going to have a job (or the life-saving insurance that’s tied to our jobs, here in America).
After music school, I took premedicine courses and started working as a medical scribe, working my way up and eventually landing in medical research - I wanted to give back to the community that saved me, and I wanted to help other patients who were living through similar experiences. I knew it would be a lot of work, but in my mind, if I could help just one other person, all that work was worth it.
I am absolutely enraged medical research and healthcare have become political talking points, while the incredibly wealthy people in charge have cut funding for both, drastically.
They are lining their pockets with the deaths of Americans.
This song captures my rage, my frustration, and my sorrow for the American people. “Christ would save your for free”, but far too many politicians have no interest in saving you at all.
However, they will take every dime you have while you’re fighting to survive.
“Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime” and yet.. we have to pay every damn dime to stay alive.
Moonshine - demo
Moonshine was written and recorded in December 2025, when
I entered (yet another) IBD flare. It discusses the hardships of life, and the feeling of losing yourself due to illness.
This song originally began as a writing exercise - the last word of each line can be used as the first word of the next line. This lyrical overlap creates room for multiple different interpretations of each line,
an intentional choice - life is difficult for all of us, just in different ways.
Smokin Gun
My first release, Smokin Gun, is about the importance of taking care of your neighbors and community, and how life is always more important than profit. I wrote this song when I saw I-40 had flooded again, a full year after Hurricane Helene hit the area.
I grew up down south, in Virginia and Tennessee, and frequently traveled through those mountains to see family. The devastation caused by Helene hits close to home for me, and I was (and still am) outraged by the cuts to FEMA, especially when disasters like this have become increasingly common due to climate change.
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This song also represents my return to music - the violin melody in the 3rd verse of Smokin Gun is a continuation of Charles Ives’s 2nd Violin Sonata, which I performed during my college senior recital.
Charles Ives ends the sonata in the middle of a melodic phrase, leaving the listener yearning for more. I chose to end my recital with this piece because I knew I would be stepping back from solo performing due to my health, but I also wanted to show I wasn’t finished - I would return to music as a solo performer one day.
The melody is a common folk song, Nettleton (“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing”), which I frequently sang in church as a young girl. In this song it is both an homage to my past and my upbringing in the south, and a reference to my classical music training.
In verse 3 of Smokin Gun, I continues this violin folk melody where Ives ended it, signaling my return to music as a solo artist, and the continuation of my music career.