As a child, I liked getting my hands dirty. I was a maker of mud pies, a fully-clothed lake jumper; I took every opportunity I found to roll down a grassy hill. I spent my childhood doing the things only kids can get away with. As a creator, I find this same primal urge to engage in the messy– not necessarily by digging around in the dirt, but by digging through mine and others’ experiences. Sometimes my art feels like a treasure hunt– a quest of finding clarity or insight in some of the most complicated human emotions and encounters. 

I took one of these quests last year in the creation of a song titled “Payday”. The lyrics of Payday are a self-reflection of my adolescence, a time that contrasts starkly with my adventurous early childhood. When I reached my teenage years, I felt an intense fear start to form about my future. I knew I wanted to pursue a career in the arts, but I faced a lot of self-doubt that was coupled with the warnings and harsh opinions of others. Payday is the culmination of these voices, some patronizing, some constraining, and all set in the small-minded context of my rural Georgian hometown. I switch perspectives a lot, sometimes taking the voice of a condescending elder like in the line “She’s sweet as sugar and those porcelain figurines you buy off the side of the road”. Other times, I speak for myself, like in the line “I’m questioning everything; does money even mean a damn thing?” Money is obviously a consistent metaphor throughout the song, as I use the word “payday” to represent success and phrases like “paper people” to represent the skeptics whose skepticism I eventually recognize as disposable. The melody and guitar accompaniment are simple and unassuming, and I crafted them intentionally. The earnest music allows me to present some of my most visceral lyrics through a lens of gentle nostalgia. I put a lot of thought and a lot of soul into this piece. The journey to a finished product wasn’t linear, but it was worth digging deep for.