February ‘24: New Song
“Unbelievably True”
Here I was thinking it had been really long time since I’d delivered a One Big Dark Room new original song… but upon getting in here again I realized we actually just had one (though that really was the first one in a while) back in December…
I mentioned then that I’ve been doing some deep internal work on improving my mindset and my “self-concept” - it’s heady stuff, but basically: deep consideration of how I perceive myself, what my personal beliefs are and why I hold those beliefs, and the default actions and behaviors I execute based on those beliefs. While undergoing this introspection, I am actively working to shift these beliefs, to “re-parent” myself (in a way) to help me embody the valuable and worthwhile person I should already consider myself to be, but have always doubted if I really was.
Anyway, all this work is some pretty heavy lifting. Truthfully, it’s been what my therapist has been trying to get me to grasp for a few years now, and I’ve made slight progress here and there, but I was interacting with these concepts at a slightly more shallow level before, and I feel like in the last couple months something has really “clicked” for me in this regard. It’s really a total mindset and identity overhaul. In a good way!
I was teetering on these topics already quite a bit in songs last year, and probably even before: One Small Thing comes to mind, in which there is one “side” of me pleading with the other “side” to not give up on myself. This song includes a similar dialogue between the “dark” and the “light” (though truly I think there’s a bit of both in either).
This songwriting session was blessed by a perfect prompt from Emily: “unbelievably true.” I loved this phrase in this context: so much of this kind of work involves looking at deeply held beliefs about ourselves and deliberating about how much the negative stories we’ve come up with internally are based on actual fact. The hilarious/disheartening(?) part is, perhaps, that there’s really not a real way to know, as there are so many other external variables, factors, and perceptions of any given situation to align our own stories to. So why not assume and hope for the best? That’s what I’m working on… and that’s what this song is about 🤷♀️
I’ll be playing this live for the first time tomorrow at our Keyholder-Only broadcast (via YouTube live). The updated link is available at the concert tab. I’m also planning to do a deeper verbal dive on the public release version of “Side by Side” and give you more details about the recording process. I’m looking forward to spending time with you then!
❤️LoveLetter
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