This is where I will be sharing studio updates, photos and and video blogs of me, my songs, my plants and my recording process. For more long form essays you can also read my Substack, Music Magic Intution
Fun story about this song. I used to cover it with my old band, then when I got the Juno keyboard it was a great song for learning to program loops into it.
This video is from that, about a year ago. I had a lot of fun sifting through the cool percussion sounds and putting it all together.
I hadn't thought about the song in a long time but then two weeks ago I was in the shower when basically a whole bolt of lightning shot into me and I knew I needed to produce and record a new cover of it.
At least it felt like that, anyway.
I went to bed that night thinking about it, and then woke up with the same steely determination to record it. My initial plan for the week was to fine tune some demos because I'll be back in the studio next month recording new songs, but the demos had to wait because this wanted to come out first.
I produced it and recorded it that week, and this week I sent it off to be mixed.
It veered quite a bit from this version which is more faithful to the original, but I'm extremely excited to share it here when it's done.
This is a little essay about my very first favorite song (!) by Phil Collins and how it would unwittingly go on to influence my own music and musical tastes 35 years later.Fuck yeah Phil Collins!
Also, this is a rich subject and we’d all love a little nostalgia for the week, so let’s talk about our first favorite songs and artists!
In my head I imagine being a baby, shaking my rattle to my dad’s classic rock collection, but it would be another 12 years before I would properly discover those albums.
I have a vague recollection of tinkering at my grandmother’s piano when I was 2 or 3, but my very first specific memory of having an emotional reaction to music was when I first heard this song:
I remember the day— My mom had picked me up from daycare, and I was 5 or so years old. I had spent enough time with Raffi and other kiddie artists, but car rides were my first real exposure to “adult” music. My mom wasn’t what I would call a die-hard music fan, but she always had the radio on, usually to the soft rock/ adult contemporary station.
Thiswas the first real song that I knew I loved.
It was because of that shimmery bell keyboard lead. It’s both melancholy and hopeful (and in retrospect, so exquisitely 80s).Then and now, I judged parts of a song based on whether they felt right and satisfying, and that synth is both right and satisfying and I don’t know how else to explain it.
Despite being a writer first, I’ve always been a “music first” listener.1 If I love a song, it’s usually because there is a musical hook that drew me in. I think this is a large part of the reason why the 80s are my favorite musical decade. Every song felt like an explosion of shimmer and synth.
However, on successive listens of this song, I would pick up on the lyrics, as well. I remember it resulted in uncomfortable conversations with my mother about the realities of poverty. I don’t normally associate Phil Collins with stirring lyrics, but even now, I feel this bit viscerally,
She calls out to the man on the street He can see she's been crying She's got blisters on the soles of her feet She can't walk, but she's trying
Oof.
“Another Day in Paradise” was my first favorite song, and Phil Collins was my first favorite artist because when you’re a kid, there’s no nuance. Your favorite artist is whomever made your favorite song. A year or so later, New Kids on the Block and Vanilla Ice (and then Nirvana) would explode into the 1990s. I got a walkman, then a disc-man, and was no longer subject to my mom’s easy listening preferences. I would go on to forget about Phil for a while, but his influence would continue to crop up in strange and unpredictable ways.
In 2011, Spotify came out. I was blown away by the firehose of music that was now available on command. I went on a deep dive of my forgotten favorites.
This was the second Spotify playlist I ever made.
It was inspired by the best songs that would come on the radio when my mom was driving me around in the 1980s. It stars Phil Collins.
Many of my old playlists feel dated now, but not this one. I’ve been streaming it regularly since I made it, and now play it for my own kids who love to listen to “Take Me Home” as I take them home.2
However, even during the peak Spotify years, I had no idea that there would ever come a day when I would be producing my own music. Yet more than thirty years after I heard “Another Day in Paradise” for the first time, I was. I found out that I had a distinct taste for 80s shimmer keyboards in my own songs. I discovered how incredible it felt to find the perfectly right and satisfying accent synth lines for myself.
I love it as much as writing the actual song. It’s exhilarating!
I’m hard at work on making my second album now, and realizing how much the music of that period has influenced me. I feel like I’m basically making an 80s-inspired adult contemporary album, which might sound totally lame to you, but I feel so solid about that direction it’s unshakeable.
And I guess I have Phil Collins to thank for that.
First loves hit hardest.
Because this so so fun, here are some of my other first favorite songs of the period along with their most right and satisfying parts:
Kokomo by The Beach Boys………… I know I said music first, but this is song is great because of the really catchy chorus lyrics (and the steel drum).
Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel…………… the bass line + the japanese flute thing!!!
I Can’t Dance by Genesis…………… “and the ‘Best Use of Coke Bottle Percussion’ award goes to…”
Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits……… I will sit through 5 minutes of this song just for the guitar solo.
Part-Time Loverby Stevie Wonder………The “Dadadada dadadadada” part that Stevie sings.
What were your song first loves?
And what was it about the songs that drew you to them?
I transferred this playlist to Qobuz when I got off Spotify. here’s the link if you use Qobuz and want to feel like you’re driving around in your mom’s car in the 80s.
It feels like I’ve been megaphoning this from the mountaintop for the past several months but I recognize that many of you out there might scarcely have realized or noticed…
This is my favorite song from the album which I haven’t yet shared here. I wrote it about feeling cringey and awful posting myself on TikTok. It felt blood-sucking.
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…
The thing about releasing an album is that is has neccesarily made me much more active on social media, and much more glued to my phone.
…Or at least that’s what I was telling myself.
“I NEED to be on my phone now. I just need to share this or comment on that, or respond to this, or post that and blah blah blah.” - Me, verbatim.
LIES.
Sharing shit on my phone accomplishes very little.
First of all, most of it gets eaten up by the algorithm and suffocates in the void.
Second of all, even the stuff that receives *some* attention still produces very little returns because scrollers aren’t looking to enjoy and/or spend money on music. They are looking to scroll. Maybe you entertain them for 2 seconds with a strong hook, but it very rarely converts to anything else.
I realized that posting my songs on instagram felt like playing music to disinterested passersby, or being background noise at an overcrowded bar, and I literallyjust wrote about how I’m turning down these gigs now because I find them soul-sucking and low yield.
When I was promoting my album release show, I considered using a meta ad campaign. I eventually decided against it because all the artists I saw shilling tickets via “sponsored” content were established artists with snazzy, well produced footage of their big shows and big audiences.
I don’t have this, but also I don’t like these platforms. I don’t like the values that they are trying to impose on our society.
It feels out of integrity for me to give them money.
So I guess I’ll just give them hours and hours of my time……?
Guys… my phone usage during this “publicity cycle” was getting to be upwards of 6-7 hours a day.
(I’m embarrassed to write that.)
And comparatively very little of it was spent on publicizing anything!
Rather, here is how I was spending my days:
listening to video podcasts
watching Youtube
filming myself for tiktok
watching other tiktoks
reading substacks and scrolling notes
scrolling insta
reading articles about anything and everything wellness
watching TV and immediately wanting to know everything else that actress has ever been in, where they are from and what their astrological sign is
reading about the astrological transits currently happening
watching astrological “hot takes”
checking back to see if anyone liked my tiktok
getting sucked back into watching more tiktoks
getting force fed alarming and devastating global and political news via tiktok
checking every other news source see if the tiktok videos were accurately representative of the news
reading more news
going back to astrological hot takes for a palate cleanse
ignoring my family
DO I REALLY NEED ACCESS TO THIS MANY OPINIONS AND THIS MUCH INFORMATION ALL THE TIME?
And more importantly…
Do I really want my kids to remember me as a device junky?
I feel regret that I’ve already wasted so much time demonstrating to them how NOT to lead a full and present life.
Last Friday I deleted all social media off my phone again (including this app). I do this periodically, and for the first few days it’s wild how my right hand will just grab my phone and try to find something to scroll without my conscious awareness.
If I feel inspired to put something up or share something, I will redownload the app for a few minutes to accomplish that task, and then delete it again. Otherwise I check from my laptop twice a day.
I am also trying this new thing where when I watch TV or read a book, I just watch TV or read a book.
I have to remind myself that my life is not enhanced by googling every detail of the starring actresses skincare regimen, mid-scene.
Meanwhile what actually enhances my life is:
presence
small moments of beauty
noticing what’s around me
using all of my senses, not just my brain
attuning to my kids and family
connection with real, live people
creating things, not consuming them…
And with all the time I was using NOT to scroll, I wrote a whole song about how disgusted I was with my scrolling habits and I want to share it.
It’s a jaunty bit. The working title is “Song for my neck”
That will make more sense if you hit play…
Let me know what you think?
(I’m going back to record some more songs in the studio in August and maybe this will be one of them.)
…And I know I can’t be the only one feeling this way…
Are you actively trying to cut down on your phone use?
How?
And importantly, how is your neck doing?
If you’re looking for more ideas and inspiration on how to get your face out of your phone…
has been smartphone free for a year and she is GOALS. I am already researching this “Light Phone” that she has, and investigating practical ways to spend a lot more of my time smart-phone free.
I read a Substack a couple of days ago about some devious and sneaky music marketing and PR tactics that infuriated me and I wanted to share my thoughts on it.
I hope you find this illuminating and insightful and thank you to words from eliza for inspiring it.
“All you need is for one person to think you’re cool, and you’re in. Everyone else will be scared to question it.” - Never Been Kissed, 1999
I read this article this week ( along with thousands of other people) about the devious tactics employed by a music marketing firm called Chaotic Good.
Since that article popped off, Chaotic Good has updated its website to obscure many of its clients, as well as remove its “Narrative Campaign” offering from its website.
What is a Narrative Campaign, you might ask?
(Or I might ask, using a very cliche rhetorical device…)
If you were scrolling TikTok in April of 2024 you might remember that approximately one out of every three TikToks was of Chappell Roan performing at Coachella. They all included bolstering captions and comments like “Absolutely Killing It” and “Baby Girl ATE,” and… I dunno… other Gen-Z ways of saying that she was really good and worthwhile.
Importantly, I had never heard of Chappell Roan before this, but subsequently I knew that Chappell Roan was an incredible talent and the next big thing in pop. After all, EVERYONE (it seemed) was talking about Chappell Roan.
“Man, I gotta listen to this Chappell Roan person!” I thought.
This is what a narrative campaign does. It floods social media with hundreds of fan accounts, and systemizes the liking and the commenting to push and control a particular narrative.
(BEFORE YOU COME FOR ME I HAVE NO EVIDENCE THAT CHAPPELL ROAN HIRED THIS FIRM, I’M JUST USING IT TO ILLUSTRATE HOW I BECAME AWARE OF, AND ENAMORED WITH, CHAPPELL ROAN IN 2024).
"All opinions are formed in the TikTok comments — which is a reminder to us of what we can help with. I don’t know if this will make anyone feel better, but a lot of what we do on the narrative side is controlling the discourse. Most people see a video or something about an album that came out, and that first comment they see becomes their opinion…”
We see this all the time in politics and the news media and we’ve all gotten rightly skeptical of the narratives that are being pushed. It’s time to bring this skepticism to pop culture and music as well…
Like I said, I don’t have any evidence that Chappell Roan’s team hired Chaotic Good, but I know Geese’s team did and out of nowhere last summer they became everywhere.
Which is to say that, like it or not, our opinions and tastes on music can be more easily manipulated than we might recognize.
This is because..
Hype compounds exponentially, and when you don’t have organic hype you can fake it with a big budget and dummy bot accounts!
Artists with big teams and big labels and big budgets know this, and can hire hundreds of people to leave comments, or make videos sharing and hyping a particular song or performance.
For some reason, most people seem to associate internet comments and commenters with an inherent legitimacy and trustworthiness that they absolutely do not deserve:
That’s really nice for those big artists to be able to do this. They are literally white-knuckling the internet to make people care about them.
But for most of us indie artists, (if we never slept or ate or looked away from our phones for even a second) we might be able to summon the grit and gumption it takes to make hundreds of burner fan accounts, and coordinate their posting and commenting efforts to trigger an algorithm into believing “something is brewing” long enough and often enough to generate enough fake hype to create real hype.
If you feel up to doing this, please by all means, report back.
I, however, will take a different approach which is to spread awareness of how our tastes are being controlled and manipulated.
It is my hope that we all can learn to better recognize the sinister marketing bots in action, and separate their conclusions and opinions from our own!
….and thus, this problem will take care of itself….
That is my purpose in writing this piece today, but I also want to pay tribute to the authors who inspired it which brings me to…
LASTLY, HERE IS SOME REAL ORGANIC HYPE ON MY NEW RECORD THAT I DID NOT PAY FOR!
May you find it trustworthy and persuasive…but please…do make up your own mind…
“Her music is both groundbreaking and familiar at the same time, and that is a rare combo these days. Her vocals are warm, her lyrics expressive, and her message is incredible.” Chattanooga Pulse, April 1, 2026
“In her ten track debut album, Caroline offers something truly special: an escape into a whimsical wonderland that leaves you real life confidence and inspiration.” Why Are You So Quiet, March 26, 2026
“Nice work! It’s not my style but it’s quality work. Sounds great!”- someone else on the Reddit bandcamp thread2
“Most of my songs are about confidence and empowerment, and I wrote them to inspire that in myself, as well as to give it to other people.” - Me, last week.
Currently Angine De Poitrine are everywhere, and while I can appreciate their novelty and the true human-ness of the music that they make, I can’t help but be a little skeptical of the internet’s “THE NEW SAVIOR OF MUSIC” reaction. Personally, I can listen to Angine De Poitrine for about five minutes, but after that it becomes a bit repetitive and grating to me.
I really appreciate that someone who doesn’t even like the kind of music I make took the time to comment and tell me they thought it was still worthwhile and artistically valuable. Or maybe it was a bot, who knows.
I think that’s why I’m so drawn to it. Say what you will about my album and it’s songs, but on a broad scale it is a preserved slice of the human experience that will still be accessible after my body has turned to dust.
Further, it’s on its own journey, irrespective of me. We can create the thing, but we have no control over where, when or how often it is consumed.
In this way, our art children are like actual children. We can steward them kind of, but where they ultimately end up is not up to us.
Maybe my album will be passed down to my great-great-great-grandkids in a hundred years. Or maybe it will be lost to time and forgotten for centuries, only to be uncovered in the sand a thousand years from now like a cuneiform tablet, informing future historians and anthropologists of how humans existed at the dawn of the 21st century.
[I do love to speculate and fantasize on this latter possibility.]
And as a proper steward of the preserved slice of human consciousness I created, it is my duty to tell you about it, so that is what I am also doing now:
Long time readers of this Substack will know that in 2024 I—a wife, mother and attorney, long-obedient to societies’ rules for me— leapt, terrified, from the capitalist conveyor belt to make my own unique way in the world.
It was scary and invigorating to redefine myself in a way that had no firm boundaries or guaranteed social acceptance. “Act Two” is a sonic exploration of that fear, freedom and wild femininity that I felt.
Sound wise, I’m heavily influenced by the distinguished piano motifs of Tori Amos, the irreverence of Fiona Apple, and the exquisite way Kate Bush accents her piano with unexpected and cool synth (somebody get me a Fairlight!).
I call it ‘unhinged art pop.’
The album was principally recorded at Tweed Studios in Athens, Georgia, with the guidance of Grammy-Award winningproducer John Snyder, and the assistance of Improvement Movement’s Klark Sound on guitar, bass and drums.
My personal favorite song on the album is “Tick,” but the people who have heard it also really love “Push Through” and “The Dentist’s Chair.”
That last one’s pretty weird though, just an FYI.
I HOPE YOU’LL LISTEN AND LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK!
If you'd like to learn more about my journey from the capitalist conveyor belt to ‘fuck-all’ bucking (and singing) wild horse, here is a feature on me from Voyage ATL.
If you want to see me live, here is where I’ll be and when I’ll be there…
My last bit of news is that I’ve been interviewing some other creatives around town (and by town, I mean our substack village) about the fears that they’ve confronted and conquered and I look forward to sharing those interviews in the coming weeks!
This week I took a quick jaunt to New Orleans. It was my first time visiting this city, and my first time on a solo sojourn.
I forgot how much I love traveling and exploring, especially doing it free-hand with no set action items or itinerary!
It’s enriching for my creativity and inspiration to be in foreign places and around different types of people. There is something about it that wakes me up, so to speak.
I surmise that this is because remembering and enjoying your time in a new place requires you to be present to experience it. I hadn’t realized how much I had been living a task-oriented robot life, until I stepped away from all of my day-to-day chores and activities.
New Orleans has a lot of creative energy. It’s kind of like Charleston’s goth, drunk cousin, but any city with a storied and rich history appeals to me, and I very much enjoyed my time there.
It was evening and I had booked myself a walking ghost tour. I needed a caffeine pick me up and some quick dinner beforehand. This shrimp po’boy was from a real tourist hub on Bourbon street, so it probably was not even a “good” one—just an overpriced touristy one— but it was still delicious if you like fried food and mayonnaise!
(I’m Southern, so I do.)
By the way, the walking ghost tour of the French Quarter was incredibly interesting. New Orleans has a definite air of mystery that lends itself to spooky outings. It’s also the setting of lots of vampiric lore and some horrific atrocities.
If you’re curious and want to learn more, here are some of the stories we covered on the tour:
The tour met at an occult shop called the Witches Brew. There are many voodoo and occult shops in the French Quarter, all of them are worth stopping in.
This shop was still open when I arrived and offered grab-bag tarot readings where you pick an envelope and open it to find three random tarot cards inside, along with a printout telling you what they mean.
I’m a sucker for anything grab bag, so I bought it for $12.
These were the cards I got which speak to creative inspiration, new horizons and exploration and… feels pretty on point to me.
The adorable old side street the shop was on.
The above photo is the former home of Jacque St Germain who allegedly inspired the character of Lestat from Interview with a Vampire. It’s been very well maintained but look at how the creepy clouds skulk around it like spirits in the night:
The following morning I walked myself over to the most famous coffee and pastry place in town.
I also got this great photo of Jackson Square in the mist.
This square has had roughly the same layout for about 300 years, and used to be the site of some really grisly executions. It’s giving old-world European, but with balm and palms!
This is not a travel blog…. But if it was I would tell you to get to Cafe du Monde when it opens and you’ll skip the line. I was seated right away and had my beignets within 5 minutes. I was also treated to someone playing the tuba for tips outside on the street. It was 7:30am, but that’s New Orleans for you.
Here’s Jackson Square in full daylight. I propped my phone up against a bench to get myself in the picture too, so you’re welcome.
I want to share briefly about the shopping.
As an antique aficionado, I can confidently say that the antiques are better (and more affordable) in Atlanta.
But the art galleries are much better in New Orleans!
I didn’t make any big purchases, but it’s not because I didn’t want to. Even if you don’t plan to buy anything, the stores are still worth perusing because of the inventive window displays:
The dog is ceramic.
The entire store is devoted to possums and possum-themed art. Seriously.
I want this dress.
Lastly, I’d like to share with you some facts about the alcohol culture in New Orleans, which I found fascinating:
The bars will serve you, regardless of how sloppy you are1 because it’s a point of pride for them. The city taxes pay to have the streets in the French Quarter washed down nightly, specifically because of this.
While the city is known for embracing open containers on the street, they did recently pass a law against open containers in the car. You may not put a straw in your hurricane while driving. However, if you put the lid on it, and only remove the lid briefly to take a sip, you are not in violation of the open container laws.
The next time you are at Walgreens picking up your prescription and some nail polish remover, you may also pick up some Jose Cuervo (perhaps in lieu of the nail polish remover).
I left for New Orleans feeling strung out and overwhelmed, and I came back from New Orleans tired and hungover…
but! I had also finished a song in my hotel room— a song that had been irking me for months.
It’s been several days and I still feel inspired and creatively infused.
It’s funny how we forget the things that give us life while going about our lives, and for me that is novelty and exploration. I don’t need to leave my city to do this either, it’s often as simple as taking a different way home and enjoying the new scenery.
Atlanta, being Atlanta, off I-75.
Have you been to New Orleans? What do you think?
I think that there is a lively discussion of the following Southern US port cities that needs to be had: New Orleans vs. Savannah vs. Charleston.
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