My songwriting challenge is going quite well! I was scared I would loose steam already after the first song, but I managed a second one. So far so good.

(I will try to film this from a better angle next time, the pop filter got in the way of my face).

This one started with the piano motif and I knew what it would be about when I came up with the motif. It felt like floating away and so the first line (I dream of floating away) was pretty straightforward.

It isn’t a complex song and I am actually finding great enjoyment and fulfillment in writing songs without complex chord structures as that too takes skill.

I have had this idea in my mind that chord progressions need to be innovative and complex for a song to be good and stand out. I think that idea comes from a feeling of not being enough.

But what has become more important for me is the feeling or emotion a song evokes and sometimes that is a basic, known chord progression and other times it’s a more complex one.

The song conveys more a vibe or feeling than it tells a story as such. It conveys the feeling of wanting to float away, be held, surrender and be listened to.

It’s not about wanting to die or escape even, but to be held and to let it all go.

I felt this feeling a lot when I was bedbound by chronic illness (I still am bedbound a lot, but I can get out of bed a lot more now). I would often picture myself in a flowing white dress, walking down to the sea and floating away, being held by the arms of the ocean and being understood and being able to let go of everything, give it all to the sea.

It was so heavy being in all that pain and lying in bed all day in a darkened room, I needed an escape. And the sea for me has always held a special place in my heart. Its where I used to go to feel held and supported and heard.

Here are the lyrics:

I dream of floating away

Of gravity becoming lighter

Am I nearly there?

I see myself in a flowing white dress

The gentle waves caress my skin

Am I nearly there?

Oh I need a space to fall

Will you catch me now

The day you stopped believing in me

I walked to the ink black sea

Am I nearly there?

I’ve been trying to tell you

My voice needs somewhere to echo

Am I nearly there?

Oh I need a space to fall

Will you catch me now

Oh I need a space to fall

Will you catch me now

Ooooh

Oh I need a space to fall

Will you catch me now

Oh I need a space to fall

Will you catch me now

Let me know what you think of the song!

Tell me…

Have you ever just wanted to be held and to let it all go?

Do you have a relationship with the ocean?

What are your favourite lines from the song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

I have given myself a challenge. I was slightly annoyed with myself for not writing more songs and I kept thinking that I’m either not inspired or I’m too tired or something, because nothing was coming up.

But then I remembered that I know how to create my own inspiration.

So I’ve given myself a challenge which is to write a song a week and share it on social media and here.

Phew!

I’m a little nervous.

Will I have the energy for this?

Will my brain be able to handle it?

Will I eventually run out of ideas?

The first week went really well… too well. I LOVE this song and now I’m worried I can’t create anything at this level again.

The song of this first week is called Troubled Mind and is about worrying about the state of the world and where it’s all heading.

As a disabled person I worry about this a lot because I am very dependent on society.

I also started singing lessons! We discovered that my tongue placement is the root of all the evil that has haunted my singing, and I’m hypermobile which means I can go really high in pitch (because high notes require flexibility in the vocal chords), but this comes at the expense of stability — and stability is needed to stay in tune.

My voice coach could hear the hypermobility instantly because I have a tendency to go sharp on the higher pitches, while most non-flexible people tend to go flat.

You can hear me go sharp in the first chorus at the high note. I was about to redo it or fix it in Logic, but I decided to leave it in to show you where I am at with my voice and how the state of my body affects it.

I have always had this issue with tuning — more so after I became sicker — and I always thought I was the problem, or that I couldn’t hear the right note and I was really embarrassed about it, because I thought it made me ‘unmusical’.

But now I know what is causing it! And we are now working towards creating more stability in the voice. I feel so liberated and more confident in my voice now. While it is still far from perfect, at least I know how to move forward.

Ok, back to the song…

I had a few notes in my lyric diary and the first two lines of the song was at the top. I had heard these line in my head one day, it was quite magical.

Since becoming more severely ill my brain has stopped producing sentences like that. I used to be inundated by my brain creating sentences, but these past nine years everything has been quiet inside my brain. So creating a sentence like that out of nowhere made me very happy.

I sat down at the piano, played a Gadd11 chord and the melody came pretty fast from there.

I knew what the song was about immediately.

I also had the words “Like a lifeboat” in my lyric diary and that’s how I created the chorus.

Here are the lyrics:

I’ve seen the lights

I’ve read the new formations

Fearsome clouds

Creating odd constellations

Oh oh oh

Like a lifeboat sinking in the sea

Will you teach me

How to tame my troubled mind

Oh oh

My eyes they strain

To see the birds play on the horizon

They’re unaware

Of battle ships encroaching on them

Oh oh oh

Like a lifeboat sinking in the sea

Will you teach me

How to tame my troubled mind

We sing forgotten songs

About a time when we knew better and were kind

Oh oh oh

For forty years we heard whispers from above

But ignored them

Oh oh

Worn-out shoes

Worn-out hearts

The streets are littered with stuff

When will we reach the edge of defiance

When have we lost enough

Oh oh oh

Like a lifeboat sinking in the sea

Will you teach me

How to tame my troubled mind

Oh oh

Let me know what you think of the song and my challenge!

Tell me…

Do you worry about the state of the world

If you could give yourself a challenge what would it be?

What are your favourite lines from the song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Hi friend,

I have felt an existential angst lately. Well… I have felt that since becoming ill with ME/CFS — even at its mildest, half of my life was taken away.

The angst comes from an issue with time.

Every year in January, on my birthday, I have felt this the most. Another year gone and I was still lying in bed in a darkened room.

The angst was a quiet hum in the background and it got louder here and there and then dissipated into the background again.

But lately it has started screaming — for a good reason.

These past six months I have gotten better.

I don’t consider myself to be in the severe category of ME/CFS anymore.

While I’m still in bed a lot of the time, I can lie with the curtains open now, I can sit at my desk and paint for more than an hour, I can sit upright at the piano now, I can make no-knead bread and a bowl of pasta, I can train my singing voice, I even went to a café twice, visited my uncle and visited my friend AND I went to a chocolate shop and bought my own chocolate (I was so stressed about the new ways of paying!).

I want more! I have become even more hungry for life.

Don’t get me wrong — I am so fricking grateful and my thoughts and love go out to every single person still lying in their beds in pain.

But getting a bit more life after nine years of being 95-99% bedbound… that angst takes on a different colour:

I feel like I have to spend my time correctly, that every second counts, that all the things I promised myself I would do when I got better I will actually do. That’s a lot of pressure.

The thoughts going through me constantly are:

Am I doing enough?

Am I using my time wisely?

Could I be doing more?

Arg I am running out of time, this is going too slowly!

Is there something I could be doing that I’m missing because I am so used to doing next to nothing?

My brain can’t seem to fathom and organise all the small things I want to do in a day.

I have physiotherapy exercises that I am doing throughout the day…

I am taking an online art education on my own time…

I am practising ear training…

I am training my singing voice…

…and tending to a sourdough.

I have to write everything down and I have alarms on my calendar to remind myself of ‘all these things’ because my brain can’t remember them all, it’s not used to remembering that kind of stuff.

My brain feels overloaded these days, but I hope it comes around.

I am still having troubles with my creativity and I don’t know if it is something I can train, or whether I am still dealing with too much neuroinflammation for my brain to create new pathways.

I still remember how I used to be able to sit in creative flow for hours and have words and sentences come to me so easily. I miss that!

But my brain still feels very blank — and dulled. It’s like not much is happening and there isn’t much space in there either.

My parents often have to remind me that I am still sick and I can’t have the same expectations as an able-bodied person.

I know, I know… but I am sooooo sick and tired of being this limited. My patience is running out and that’s a good thing.

I want to get my life sorted, I want to play more music, I want to make more art and I want to get out into the world and share my voice and presence.

The feeling of running out of time is ever-present. I am 44 and still have a full life to re-build and I am nowhere near close to a full recovery.

Will my body improve enough in time? And will I have the capacity to do what I want to do in time?

Tell me…

Do you ever feel pressed for time?

Have you ever had existential angst?

How are you doing at the moment?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Have you listened to Lonely Birds?

Lonely Birds is a song about our western loneliness epidemic.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Buy or listen to the album here

Hi friend,

One of the things I love about songwriting is that we don’t have to have the answers. We can be vague, explore without finality and describe a vibe rather than a solution.

Before I became ill I thought my purpose was to be an academic researcher. I was always told I was intelligent and that academia would be the right place for me. My heart said something completely different — it wanted to create — but nobody saw that side of me and I don’t blame them, because I didn’t show it.

I also tried out coaching for a few years after I became ill and my brain was too inflamed for academia. But my heart wasn’t in it either. I hated being hired to help people find solutions and a way forward, I would rather just describe what they were going through and help them accept who they are and what they were feeling and maybe even explore new perspectives.

In my last album I explored the question “What happens when a body slowly breaks and there is no one there to help?” I explored themes of grief, nostalgia, longing stigma and discrimination.

I didn’t rationally sit down and say to myself “Ok, let’s explore this question now,” it was rather a subconscious question that was present at the back of my mind.

In my forthcoming album, I’m exploring another central question:

“What does it mean to rebuild a life when illness, loss or fate has taken away the life you were supposed to have?”

While I haven’t recovered in any way, I have found healing and stability. I have come to terms with the illness, but have more hope than ever. I have let go of anger and bitterness, but am still grieving. I have found a sense of worth even though most would consider a person like me a burden on society.

It’s time to rebuild… but what does that mean when I haven’t recovered? How do we still process all the loss that has come with this illness? Who are the ones left behind in all this chaos? How do we grieve the futures we never got to live?

I don’t want to answer these questions, simply explore the many facets of them.

I want to share a snippet of a demo of a song from the forthcoming album. It’s called Seventy Falling Stars and is a song about finding hope in the darkest of places:

I am moving ahead with my album. My brother has recorded all the piano and some of the accordion accompaniment. In October my drummer will be recording all percussion and then I have to reach out to a bass player and a cellist. After that my brother may need to redo some piano, add the remaining accordion, and I have to redo a lot of the vocals.

My last album took four years to record, mainly because I was too ill most of the time to do anything and had to wait for good energy and voice days which only came around a few times a year. I also had to record only a line or verse at a time from bed or reclinable wheelchair.

Now I can sit upright at the piano and microphone and sing. While I can get through an entire song, it doesn’t sound great towards the end as I run of steam, so I often have to record over several different days. Some days my voice just doesn’t work and I’ll have to wait for a better day.

Nevertheless, I am getting more and more excited about this project!

Tell me…

What questions are you asking yourself at the moment?

How do you process loss or grief?

Are you working on any creative projects at the moment?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Have you listened to Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray?

Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray is a song about wanting to escape the pain and retreat into your own sacred space.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or purchase here

I wrote Powerful People’s Anthem when I had watched this political debate on live TV between two politicians fighting about who could stop as many refugees from entering the country.

It wasn’t an exploratory debate about how to best solve the issue of displaced people, how to ensure their rights and safety, it was a fight for attention.

And I thought, wow they are really throwing around verbal grenades fuelled by something dark or unresolved inside of them.

The song is written in ⅝ time signature, which gives it that odd rhythm. I thought it was fitting to this theme.

When I was later diagnosed with ME/CFS and discovered that this illness was an explosive battle field in the medical world, this song became even more important and relevant.

On one side of the battlefield were (and still are) powerful conservative doctors and psychiatrists who claim that ME/CFS is a psychological disorder caused by stress and an inability to handle modern life combined with a fear of movement. They claim that recovery is possible if you deal with that stress and adopt healthy coping mechanisms and gradually exercise your body more and more. Wouldn’t that be nice! It just isn’t reality.

On the other side are patients and progressive doctors who, through science, know that this is a biomedical neuroimmune illness affecting several systems in the body and that you can’t just think or exercise your way out of it.

The doctors on the psychological side of the table bullied patients and claimed we were science-deniers, anti-mental health, that we maintained a ‘sick role’, and were ‘activists’ (like it was a negative thing). They claimed progressive doctors were quacks and harmed patients.

When witnessing this bullying I kept thinking back to my song Powerful People’s Anthem and how fitting it was for this situation too: That powerful people need therapy rather than a microphone.

Here are the lyrics:

Strange worlds of tears open at the seams

This carnival of lies I’ve been building in my dreams

The eyes I dipped in black the drops melting on my cheek

The stitches in my brain they hold on tight to what is left

Mama they took my guns away from me today

I cannot stay

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

I see a trickle on your face, my dear, do you want me to wipe it clean?

Your carnival will never come true only the demons of your dreams

Mama they took my guns away from me today

I cannot stay

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Did you see me set fire to the forest again?

Did you see me when my skin was sorest and in pain?

Did you see me put on my plastic heart waiting for the rain to wash me clean?

The war is over

My clown suit is waiting downstairs

Mama they took my guns away from me today

I cannot stay

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

Leave me in pain it fuels my verbal grenades

This was such a fun song to both write and record. Jonas Müller (my brother) plays the piano and David Hagen plays the double bass. François Perdriau has mixed the song and Pete Maher mastered the song. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to have my song accompanied by such excellent musicians. They really brought out the vibe in the song.

Tell me…

Have you ever thought that certain powerful people need therapy and not more power?

Has your life ever been affected by the decisions of powerful people?

What’s your favourite line from the song?

I’d love to know in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Thank you so much for reading this post. If you know someone who could benefit from this, then please share this page with them.

Share

Help support the cause by purchasing the album here.

Hi friend,

The other day I got the best comment on TikTok. It was on a post about my song I Can’t Run When I’m Dreaming. It said:

“Listening to this song brought the grief forward for me, but not in the normal devastating way. It felt more like a moment of acceptance.”

She described in the best words possible why I create music — to help people find acceptance of themselves and their feelings even in the darkest of hours.

That’s what I needed the most when I was in the darkest place. I didn’t need people telling me how to heal or how to this or that. I needed to feel acceptance of what I was feeling.

Accepting the grief, the anger, the bitterness, the fear, the sorrow… all of it.

I discovered how painful it can be when we resist or judge our feelings — and how liberating it is when you stop judging and resisting and find a way to be OK with what is going on inside of you.

I used to work as a coach. I had my own little online business. But I didn’t really like it. I absolutely have the utmost respect for coaches (the good ones) and I admire their work, but it just wasn’t for me. I felt like it wasn’t my purpose. I would rather create words that give meaning to inner states and feelings, or to a certain perspective about the world, and in that way make people feel seen and heard and understood.

It’s what I have always needed myself.

My album is slowly moving forward! My brother has started recording the piano and the next step is to find session musicians to record percussion, cello and bass where needed (I have some in mind). Then I probably need to redo some vocals and my brother will add accordion where needed. And then comes the whole editing and mixing and mastering process… still a ways to go.

This album is about lives shattered by illness, war, and loss — and the strength to rebuild, reclaim hope, and find a way forward. I’m so excited for this to come into the world!

Also, it’s Bandcamp Friday Today, which means Bandcamp wavers their fees so everything goes to the artist (that is me)… and in this case all proceeds go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS research. Purchase my album here to support the cause.

Tell me…

What is music giving you at the moment?

Do you have any creative projects you want to share?

Are you accepting your feelings at the moment?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Have you listened to I Can’t Run When I’m Dreaming?

I Can’t Run When I’m Dreaming is a song about the grief of losing the body and mind you once had and all the emotions that come with this kind of trauma.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or buy here

I wrote this song a few weeks ago. It’s very different to my usual darker minor songs, but I still love it.

I’m not sure where, but I saw the words ‘sandy hills’ somewhere and then I came up with the first line: “On those sandy hills / I came out of my trance of illusion.”

I knew immediately that this wong was about transformation and some form of internal healing.

I have done a lot of inner work on myself these past many years as I was lying in bed in a darkened room (what else is there to do?) and one major thing has been befriending, accepting and then letting go of anger and bitterness.

It was only when I accepted these feelings, truly honoured them, and fully allowed myself to feel them that they started to dissipate.

As someone living with chronic illness I have experienced my fair share of rejection over the years. It created a lot of bitterness within me and I realised it was just hurt and fear that needed to be honoured.

One of my favourite lines in this song is: “And no longer be afraid / Of people who don’t care.” It alludes to letting go of all the hurt and fear from having been rejected by people I loved and trusted.

I mess up the piano part towards the end, I am starting to get tired and I lose my concentration, but I decided not to do a retake, mainly because it could take weeks before I can do another take, but also to work with perfectionism and being ok with being a human being whose physical capacity is not the same as able-bodied people’s.

Let me know what you think of the song?

Here are the lyrics:

On those sandy hills

I came out of my trance of illusion

A I said to them

They should leave it all behind and not fool them

Into thinking they cared

About anyone but themselves

I left my scared ghosts behind

On those sandy hills

Yesterday’s storms

Had me reeling and believing I was failing

All my uniforms

Have grown tight my soul no longer fits them

I am naked and alone

Standing on the hollow mounds I once built

Now I’ll leave my scared ghosts behind

On those sandy hills

Do you remember how we yelled at trees that got in our way

Do you remember how we scolded bees that stung

Do you remember how our hearts grew stiff and wild with thorns

Do you remember how we blamed the birds for their songs

On those sandy hills

On those sandy hills

I realised I was meant for something more

To pull out the thorns

And find meaning in the foxgloves and the daisies

And not always be afraid

Of people who don’t care

I left my scared ghosts behind

On those sandy hills

On those sandy hills

On those sandy hills

Tell me…

Do you have anger or any other feelings that you are holding on to, but would like to let go of?

Have you experienced rejection and how did you handle it?

What’s your relationship to perfectionism at the moment?

What are your favourite lyrics in the song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Hi friend,

First of all, real quick: After much consideration I started a separate newsletter for my abstract art. At first I thought I would combine them, but it just didn’t work for me creatively. So here it is: Madelleine’s Studio.

I’ll be sharing my abstract art, my process as well as stories behind the artwork and what it means to paint while living with limitations.

There is one post over there right now (I’d love it if you would give it some love), but I will be sharing lots more.

Ok, so back to being a singer songwriter while living with chronic illness.

The gist of it: It ain’t easy.

Chronic illness comes in so many different forms and varieties and levels, I am not writing this on behalf of all singer songwriters living with chronic illness. While I’ve gotten better I still live with a fairly severe form of illness (although it’s slowly leaning towards moderate).

My biggest hindrance is fatigue. While it does affect my muscles in a big way, it actually feels like it mostly affects my brain and especially the part of the brain that tells the body what to do. There have been studies on this and apparently with ME/CFS, the part of the brain that tells the body what to do is severely affected and slowed down.

So one thing is the general fatigue in my body, but moving my body takes extra effort from the brain because that specific communication pathway is so slow.

That makes singing an arduous task. Singing is already an athletic sport.

The brain-fatigue also affects my musical memory. I can’t just sit down and play my songs off by heart. I have a process for memorising songs, but that process doesn’t always work with this brain. I may have a good day and go through my process, but then can’t practice it for many days and then everything I memorised is gone.

I do a lot of inner work to not let this affect my identity as an artist… but it does. I often feel ‘less than’ because of this.

My songwriting has also changed since this illness has gotten more severe, and it hasn’t changed with my recent improvement unfortunately.

My songwriting process is a lot less ‘magical’. My brain just doesn’t create stuff anymore, it’s quite empty inside. I used to constantly write down words and sentences in my journal, I was almost inundated by it, but now it’s too quiet.

The way I write songs now feels laborious, but still wonderful once I have a song. I am fully reliant on external inspiration… but I can’t digest a lot of external inspiration (like books or art or poems or real life) so not a lot happens naturally.

This also makes me feel ‘less than’, because a songwriter is supposed to be constantly creating.

I do remind myself that being a disabled artist has intrinsic value, even though I can’t do a lot of the same stuff as others can.

Tell me…

Do you live with limitations and if so, how do they affect your creativity?

Do you expect musical artists to be perfect, or would you rather have a bit of rawness?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Have you listened to Powerful People’s Anthem?

Powerful People’s Anthem is a song in 5/8. It portrays the inner turmoil of powerful people and how they really need therapy rather than microphones.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or purchase here

Hi friend!

I’m struggling to forgive myself these days. I keep scolding myself for quitting my music at too early an age (in my late teens) and for believing that I didn’t have a creative bone in my body… I’m working on it, and I will eventually get forgiveness.

Some of it I can easily blame on societal norms. See, I grew up in a time where either you had it or you didn’t and where natural talent was put on an immensely tall, and unreachable, pedestal. Either you could sing or you couldn’t. Or you could draw or you couldn’t.

At the same time I grew up with a (wonderful) brother who just so happens to be one of those 1% naturally talented people. This doesn’t mean he didn’t work hard for his skill, but he could play fluent Mozart by heart within two months of touching a piano and he could draw effortlessly, from imagination.

None of my “I’m not good enough”-ness is his fault, his ability simply accentuated this idea that you either had it or you didn’t. He definitely had it — and still does!

I had an awful break in my voice, couldn’t reach high notes and had no clue how to create what we call ‘mixed voice’, which is that beautiful clear sound you get when you blend the heavy part of your voice with the light part. It didn’t sound great and I was limited as a fly in a bottle.

I also couldn’t draw… or that is to say… I couldn’t draw from my imagination. And so I decided that I was simply not creative.

In the eighties and nineties, there wasn’t a lot of focus on how to learn or how to build a skill. Rock and pop stars would often scoff at the idea of a vocal trainer or coach saying you weren’t a real singer if you needed one.

When I started my online business in 2011 after falling ill with a chronic illness, I had to learn everything from scratch — social media, online marketing, product creation, coaching skills, building a website, coding, all the things.

And I learnt it all, step by step. That’s when it hit me: I can just learn stuff! One. Step. At. A. Time.

I lost my voice at one point during my illness and I sought out a vocal coach. She taught me that I could build and strengthen my voice, I could even learn to get rid of that nasty break I had in my voice. A whole new world had opened up for me!

I began training my voice with an online vocal coach and within half a year I had a singing voice that I was deeply proud of… until I became too ill to use it.

And that’s where the ‘trying to forgive myself’ comes in. I wish I hadn’t quit, I wish I hadn’t bought into this idea that you either had it or didn’t, I wish I had had a more ‘fuck-em’ attitude and broke through all that nonsense and learnt to sing, and draw and all the things when I was younger.

I feel time is running out now that I’m 44 and still lying in bed most of the day.

I recently discovered too that I actually CAN draw! And I can paint and be visually creative too. I’ve learnt the skill of learning. So in February this year I decided to teach myself abstract art, and voila, today I’ve opened my very own fine art print shop.

I love painting abstract art, because I can switch off the logical part of my brain and feel my way through it all. I start with a brush stroke, or a colour, or a charcoal mark and I ask ‘what’s next’ and eventually I have a painting. I studied composition and color theory and mark making to get here.

This dance with the unknown is something I’ve learnt living with chronic illness: We have no clue what tomorrow looks like, but we wake up and try as best to do things we love, and hope for the best.

This painting is called Day Dream. I started with a blue-golden color story for peace and calm, and I let my brush do a lot of vertical movements. That was the most soothing for me at the moment. I love this piece, it gives me calm vibes. What do you think?

You can check out all my paintings in my fine art print shop here.

Tell me…

Have you ever doubted your creativity?

Have you ever quit something you loved? Why?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

I love when I have the energy to create and play music. For some reason it’s easier for my body and brain to do my abstract painting than it is to play or create music. Singing is, afterall, an athletic sport.

And I don’t just need to find good energy days — which I have more of these days, I also need to find good voice days, which are more rare.

I had a good energy day today, and an ok (definitely not perfect) voice day today and so I finally finished this song I have been working on and recorded a demo for you. It’s by no means perfect as I can’t practice, so this was the first run-through after I finished the song. Not being able to practice because of illness is an immense source of grief for me.

I love this song, because it reminds me of the Portuguese singing tradition called Fado — an emotional and melancholic style of music that originated in the 1820s in the working class areas of Lisbon. Just imagine this with an acoustic guitar accompanying the vocals and piano.

I was playing around with chords and found the piano motif (the piano melody you hear in the intro), which starts with a Cm6 chord (for the musicians out there). I really loved this motif and encouraged me to keep going.

I then found the line “I woke up to the sound of someone breathing…” It felt eerie and oddly lonely.

And when I wrote the line “Why do I feel alone when I am with them…” I knew that the song was about having outgrown an old self. As I finished the song I could see that it was about missing who you were before it all came tumbling down, leaving that self behind, and loving who you’ve become now despite it all.

Here are the lyrics:

I woke up to the sound of someone breathing

I got lost

In the mountains again

Why do I feel alone when I am with them

They look down on the likeness of me

I hear an echo of a past

Before it all broke down

And I knew what to believe

I now know things can’t last

At least that’s what I tell myself

To put my mind at ease

I’m at the place where cuckoos fail to nest

The breath of the night

Is soothing on my skin

When can I return to where wildflowers grow?

I carry a debt

From past ghosts of mine

There’s a whisper in the trees

Saying one more step move further into the night

Do you want to be someone who believes?

Believe in peace

It will set your mind at ease

I dream I’m as light as a bird

My iron shells no longer weigh me down

A stillness floats through me

Did I shake them off, did I leave them all behind?

There’s a whisper in the trees

They’re welcoming me

Into the night

We know what to believe

You belong with us

Our minds they are at ease

Let me know what you think? Should I produce it and release it?

Tell me…

Do you miss old versions of yourself?

Do you love who you are now?

What do you think of the song? Should I produce and release it?

What are your favourite lyrics in the song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

I wrote this song during a time when I felt the world had given up on us.

I remember watching Luke Cage and a young boy from the street said something about there not being any heroes, and I said to myself “damn right, we’re on our own!”

At that time I was mainly housebound, I hadn’t met any doctors who would listen or understand, I had felt ostracised from my present (able-bodied) community, nobody outside fought for my patient group, we were neglected and forgotten. There are no more heroes, but we’ll do just fine on our own, I thought.

Purchase or stream here

Listen to or buy the song here

All proceeds from my music will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp or iTunes.

If you can’t listen to music, then here are the lyrics.

I wrote this song when I was living with my parents in southern France. I was just starting to understand (after five years of being ill), that there was something seriously wrong in my body and that it might be ME/CFS.

I knew very little about the disease and I hadn’t yet met my community of other ME patients, although I was beginning to be aware that there were millions like me out there.

No one in Denmark was talking about this illness and I felt like I lived in a parallel world: How could no one be fighting for us when it is something that has destroyed so many lives.

I have often felt like this song was a bit prophetic, too. In 2019, a unanimous Danish parliament voted to change the perception of ME from a psychosomatic perception to a biomedical perception — the correct and scientific perception.

This brought several high-standing doctors into a frenzy. Without listening to the patients or reading in-depth, and critically, the scientific literature of ME, they opposed the decision openly — and angrily — in the Danish media. They thought it was dangerous for politicians to meddle in health matters and that making a psychosomatic illness biological was an abomination.

The Director of the Danish Health Authority spoke at a conference for doctors and said about the vote (my translation): “That day is not a star moment for me. The Danish Health Authority had very strongly indicated - almost with an exclamation point - that we were very concerned about something that was not somatic [ie not biological], and that it would do more harm than good.”

There are no more heroes. Do you see? Those in our society who are supposed to be on the side of patients, who are supposed to be our healers, turned against us, with massive consequences for our lived realities.

The song is also about nostalgia — a yearning for the happiness of a former place or time. It expresses a yearning for play and innocence:

Upstairs in

The attic, I found our old cartoons and masks

Remember

How we’d be lost in play

And for a time when we thought we could change the world:

We dreamt of saving the Earth

But the moon was too high

And a time when I felt the world was safe and we were indestructible:

Remember

How we would listen to the stars

They told us we’d live forever

But that was a lie

There Are No More Heroes is a song of nostalgia and grief, yes, but it is just as much a song of hope, a hope that we will all “sit under blue skies” and “meet again some sunny day.” I have met so many beautiful souls whose lives have been destroyed by illness. One day, I hope to meet you all in real life!

I also recently decided to paint this song! I so enjoyed painting my other song, Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray, I wanted to do it again. This was the result — I’m so pleased with it:

I play the flute, Jonas Müller (my brother) plays the piano and Matthew Adomeit plays the double bass. François Perdriau has mixed the song and Pete Maher mastered the song. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to have my song accompanied by such excellent musicians. They really brought out the vibe in the song.

Tell me…

What are you nostalgic for?

Do you wish there were more heroes? What would they do?

What are your favourite lines from the song? Here are the lyrics

I’d love to know in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Thank you so much for reading this post. If you know someone who could benefit from this, then please share this page with them.

Share

Hi friend!

Being chronically ill and disabled as a singer-songwriter is not the easiest thing in the world. I can’t practice my craft, I can’t sing on demand, I can’t play live, I can’t sit in creative flow, and tons of other things that I can’t do.

To be honest, it can take a toll on my self worth and confidence as an artist.

That’s why self love practices have become incredibly important for me.

A few years ago, I started to notice the abysmal self talk going on inside my head. It was the equivalent of having a toxic boyfriend who consistently put me down, scolded me, told me I wasn’t good enough and all the things.

I started to notice how much it affected my nervous system, and that it became even more difficult to create. I was already up against a body and brain that wouldn’t cooperate, I also had to wade through floods of negative self talk to even get to the creation part.

I wanted to make a change, and that’s when I started my self love practices.

Catching and changing negative self talk

The first thing I did was to start catching myself when I started my negative self talk — and to not scold myself for talking that way, but lovingly acknowledge it, put my hand on my heart and say sorry.

I then began to practice talking to myself as if I was my own best friend. This was hard at first, but with practice it became easier and easier. I now feel like I’m my own best friend.

Self love alarms

Every day at 9.30 am I have an alarm go off on my phone that says: “I’m so proud of you!” While cheesy (I do love cheese!), it is incredibly helpful and it gives me a boost of loving energy. It reminds me how amazing it is that I can continue to create despite horrendous circumstances and how proud I am of myself to keep going. I have other alarms saying different things too.

I honour and feel my feelings

I used to teach yoga and was very immersed in the new age/spiritual community, where toxic positivity was unfortunately quite rampant. I didn’t feel I could be honest about the dark feelings I was having as my body was breaking, and I felt ashamed for not being able to ‘manifest’ a healthy body.

I got a spiritual addiction at one point, trying to by-pass all my difficult feelings with spiritual nonsense. It got me nowhere, and my body began to react to all the suppressed emotions.

On top of that, feeling your feelings in the traditional ways (like crying) are too exhausting for someone in a chronically ill body.

I first started to feel my anger. There was tons of it and it took about half a year before I got to the other side of it and started feeling gratitude. Now, I make sure to make space and honour my feelings. I sometimes have days where the grief is so loud all I can do is sit with it, put a hand on my heart and say “it’s ok to feel this.”

I’ve written more about my nervous-system friendly way of feeling my feelings here.

I got rid of ‘shoulding’

I am a master at doing stuff I don’t love or don’t have the energy for. I’ve been doing that my whole life and rarely made space for the things that I love because they seemed irrational or nonsensical. Music was one of those things.

But I have come to understand how vital it is to follow your heart and energy — and how energy-saving it can be.

I do not have a to-do list, I make a menu of stuff I can choose from depending on my energy and mood. I trust myself that I will get a window where my energy is right to get the important things done, but I do not force it. And I do not ‘should’ myself!

‘Shoulding’ (ie ‘you should be doing this and that’) is judgment. It’s a judgment that what you are choosing to do is wrong and that there is a better version of you who knows better out there. I refuse to judge myself in this way.

Practice non-judgment

In fact, non-judgment has become one of my favourite (and most difficult to master) self love practices.

I noticed how much energy I was spending judging both myself and others, especially judging little things. I noticed that the more I judged other people, the more critical I became of myself.

I discovered that this had turned into a visibility wound and a fear that I would be judged, just as I judged other people, if I became visible.

And by judgment I mean “this is bad” or judging their character (“she is bad”) instead of “this is not my taste.” I won’t go deeper into the practice of non-judgment as I could write a whole essay about it.

Since beginning my self love practice, I feel my mental health has become stronger, I don’t get bouts of depression or anxiety like I used to and it has become easier for me to create. This is still a work in progress and a daily practice for me — like brushing my teeth.

Tell me…

Do you practice self love?

If so, what are your self love practices?

Do you feel self love (or lack of it) affects your creativity?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Have you listened to Powerful People’s Anthem?

Powerful People’s Anthem is a song in 5/8. It portrays the inner turmoil of powerful people and how they really need therapy rather than microphones.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or purchase here

Hi friend!

I hope you’ve had a good week?

Mine has been pretty epic.

I was able to go outside, in a car, and to the beach (we live real close to the ocean). I was overwhelmed by the colours and how beautiful everything is — it was like I was seeing everything in technicolor.

I haven’t been able to go outside like this for seven years — which is unfathomable, I don’t understand how I’ve been able to keep my spirits up. I think it is because I have these wonderful creative projects that I really want to get out into the world.

I’m ’busy’ — when my body allows, working on my album. I have recorded all demos so they are ready for my brother to record the piano and for his friends to record other instrumentation. I have recorded one song as the final version (at least for now, I need to double check it). I’m able to work faster this time than my last album, but I still can’t get through recording a full song in one go, my voice just won’t allow it.

A while ago, I got the idea that I wanted to paint one of my songs! So I asked my Instagram followers to vote for a song. They chose Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray.

Here is the final piece (the size is A3):

I’d love to know what you think of it!

You can listen to the song here (for all other platforms click here):

Also, is there any merch that you would want to see with images like these on them? Like folded greeting cards, postcards, journals… etc.? I would love to start selling merch, but would like to make it useful for you, not just merch for the sake of merch. And as always, I will be donating all proceeds to ME/CFS research.

Tell me…

How has your week been?

Do you have any creative projects you’re working on right now?

What do you think of my song-painting? And what kind of merch would you be interested in from me?

I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Did you miss?

Periwinkle Blue — DEMO

Behind the song: Salem

The nervous system-friendly ways I access emotions for songwriting

Phew, I’ve had a rough month and I haven’t had the energy to record any music.

But I finally got back to my usual baseline last week and managed to record this rough demo of a song I’ve been working on.

It’s called Periwinkle Blue and is about being in a toxic relationship, but surviving by going into your own inner fantasy world… where everything is pink and periwinkle blue (aren’t they just joyful colours?).

A while ago I did some lyric writing exercises (I wish I could do them everyday, but they are hard in the brain) and I ended up with the chorus right away: In my dreams I crawl to heaven / But not the kind after death / The kind where everything is pink and periwinkle blue.

And I thought ‘wow, that sounds like someone trying to escape something by moving into fantasy’ and I knew what the song had to be about.

I want to get better at creating more rhythmic songs, but it’s hard on my body so I don’t do it that often, but I hope with my new and improved baseline that it will become more possible.

Let me know if you think I should release this song… I imagine it with a good drum and acoustic bass section, maybe adding a piano solo in there too. A trumpet, too? If you have any ideas, let me know!

Here are the lyrics:

Moonlight fell upon the porch

The shade of the birch trees

Fluttered on the ground

The glass shattered by his touch

Shards digging into skin

Blood melting on the floor

Oooh in my dreams I crawl to heaven

But not the kind after death

The kind where everything is pink and periwinkle blue

The moon will dry away the stains

But not the lesions in my mind

They’re digging deeper walls

I’m in a world of my own

I can’t tell anymore

Should I stay or should I go?

Oooh in my dreams I crawl to heaven

But not the kind after death

The kind where everything is pink and periwinkle blue

Did you come here to rescue me?

Take me into cooler waters?

Oooh let the rain fall

Let it soak up all the waste

Did you make mistakes like me at all?

Oooh in my dreams I crawl to heaven

But not the kind after death

The kind where everything is pink and periwinkle blue

Tell me…

Have you ever been in a toxic relationship?

Do you or have you ever gone into your own inner fantasy world to survive the rough stuff?

Should I release this song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Exactly a year ago, I released my first single. I remember being frightened. Real frightened. I couldn’t sleep the night before. What would people think? Was it good enough? Was it too political? Not political enough? All the things.

I released it on international ME awareness day, which is today, and I want to honour that day by telling you more about the song.

Salem is a metaphor for how women’s bodies have been neglected by medical science, how patients — including men, transmen and transwomen as well as non-binary people — suffering from diseases disproportionately affecting women were dismissed for being hysterical when in reality our bodies had become ill, and how patients have died without recognition of the true cause.

Buy/Listen here

All income for the first two years (possibly more) will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp or iTunes.

If you can’t listen to music, then here are the lyrics.

I wrote this song before I read the statistics and facts about how illnesses disproportionately affecting women such as ME/CFS, Long Covid, fibromyalgia, MCAS, EDS, POTS, migraines, endometriosis, etc., have been neglected and downright dismissed, creating a devastating stigma.

But I had an intuitive inkling that what I was experiencing as a person living with ME/CFS was sexist. How the doctors always said I was perfectly healthy, or ‘just stressed’, or had anxiety when I could barely walk. Or asked me about my mood, gave me depression and anxiety tests, asked about my relationship to my parents, my brother, how I experienced my periods — never asking me about my body. Also, no one knew what was going on.

It all felt sexist.

I had also learnt that people living with ME were being sectioned into psychiatric care, because doctors thought they were delusional, and gave parents (often mothers) a Münchhausen by proxy diagnosis without ever talking to them.

Some people had also died of ME without recognition of the true cause.

We were blamed (and still are) for being overly emotional, for being hysterical, for being science-deniers, for not being able to handle modern life.

It felt like persecution and a complete misunderstanding of who we were and what was happening in our bodies. Everything seemed to be twisted.

I later learnt that my intuitive inkling about sexism was correct.

Since the 1970s, feminist literature has pointed out three problems in health:

1. How structural sexism creates inequality in the way research funds are prioritised.

2. That it is most often the white male body and psyche that research takes as its starting point and defines as the norm.

3. And that women’s illnesses are disproportionately, and often incorrectly, attributed to social or psychological causes.

These three problems have been decisive for the historical stigmatization of ME/CFS patients, as well as other patients living with illnesses that primarily affect women (like Long Covid, fibromyalgia, migraines, endometriosis, and so forth).

For decades, psychological and behavioural research has been prioritised over biological research when it comes to ME (this is the case for other illnesses that primarily affect women, too). We are therefore left without proper treatment.

I felt, in an artistic way, that the misogynistic witch trials in Salem were the root cause of the neglect and disbelief we’ve suffered.

Salem was born in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. I was angry at being dismissed and gaslighted by doctors and I started seeing women being burnt at the stake inside my mind. I felt a kinship to all those women who were misunderstood and blamed for being female and the words “I still carry their sins” popped into my mind.

Later, the following day, the words “no ashes to ashes or dust to dust” came to me. It spoke of how we were outsiders and weren’t recognised, even in death.

I started researching how women were treated during the Salem witch trials and eventually I had enough notes to start writing the song.

It was an easy song to write. It’s one of those songs that felt like I was born with it inside me, although I know it was created from hard work and a close collaboration with my subconscious.

I play the flute, Jonas Müller (my brother) plays the piano and David Hagen plays the double bass. It is mixed by François Perdriau, and mastered by Pete Maher. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to have my song accompanied by such excellent musicians. They really brought out the vibe in the song.

All income for the first two years (possibly more) will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp or iTunes. You can also help the cause by sharing this wide and far.

Purchase or stream the music here.

Tell me…

What feelings are evoked for you when you hear the song (here are the lyrics)?

Have you experienced sexism — or the consequence of structural sexism — in any setting?

What are your favourite lines from the song?

I’d love to know in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Last year I shared my story with my old newsletter — but since a lot of you here are new, I wanted to share it again. It’s story time!

Between 2015 and 2019, when my illness was turning from mild to moderate and later severe ME (also known as ME/CFS), I wrote a whole lot of songs — enough for an album.

I’ve written songs since I was twelve, but never thought they were something I could share. I thought being a singer songwriter was something one was born to be, not something you worked to become.

When I got ME back in 2011 it changed my voice. At some point, it hurt so much to speak that I was in constant pain, even when I didn’t open my mouth. I loved singing, it relaxed me (except for the pain) so I sought out a voice teacher to get my voice back.

During a session she said to me: “You know, it seems like you have a lot to tell the world.” I did! She hit a nerve in me and I went home and started writing songs again.

They sucked at first, but I was having fun, and I started to go deeper into the practice. I created a lyric diary and started listening intensely both to external words and sounds as well as to internal words and sounds. I studied lyrics and poems I liked and wrote down why I liked them, and I started listening to music as a songwriter, not just an audience.

I remember the day I wrote the first song that I actually liked and was proud of. It’s called Where Cold Hearts Go To Pray and is on my album. I felt I had arrived and I produced more and more songs that I loved and felt were important.

I continued taking voice lessons with a different teacher over Skype — I wanted to be good enough to record — but my health and therefore my voice got worse and worse and had to stop taking lessons. I eventually became bedbound and at some point had lost my voice completely, only being able to speak in whispers.

With medication I got a bit better (some medication directly targeted my voice), enough to be able to do a minute or so of voice work from bed here and there. While I was able to recover parts of my voice, I had lost my belt (the powerful part of the voice) and my head voice had shrunk so much that I wasn’t able to produce clear sounds at the top of my voice. I had to change the expression in my songs to a lighter, more delicate voice, some I also had to transpose down, but it turned out for the better, because that delicate and darker voice really suits my songs.

In late 2020, Kara Jane (who died from very severe ME in January 2023, may she rest in peace) released a beautiful album, which she had created from bed. She spoke about how she had recorded one line at a time, and I was inspired.

With help from my brother (a professional musician) and my father we created a recording set-up that was doable for me. By early 2021 it was ready.

I have my recording gear set up right next to my bed, my microphone is on a stand with wheels so it’s easy to adjust and my wheelchair reclines so I can lie down while recording. All I had to do was place myself in the wheelchair (which some days was all I could do) and turn on the computer and sing that one line or one verse and then go back to bed.

All the prep work on the computer (like setting up the recording in Logic Pro) as well as any editing, rough mixing, scoring or keyboard work I would do on separate days in bed when I had the energy. A few more songs I wrote from bed using my ipad and an external keyboard.

I would then wait for a good day where I had energy in the morning to slowly warm up my voice while lying in bed and then record a verse, or sometimes just a line, in the afternoon using my recording setup with my reclined wheelchair.

Sometimes it would take months to find a good voice day. Most days I’m not able to produce a doable sound as my vocal chords are often very swollen or there is just not enough physical energy available in the body to push proper sound through my throat. I only have a doable singing voice for about two or three periods during the year. Sometimes I would record a verse and then have to wait half a year to record the next one.

Recording the flute was another story. The first time I recorded it from my wheelchair I got so sick that I didn’t play for a year after that. I had overestimated how much energy it takes to hold the flute.

Eventually, I found a way to play from bed, but I never managed it without crashing afterwards no matter how much I paced. My father would help me with the setup and my elbows were propped onto two yoga blocks and I was fully supported with pillows. I managed to record most of the flute this way. Honestly, it was so hard and painful and I’m not doing that again unless I get better.

In the past year my muscles have gotten stronger with medication and for the last couple of songs I was able to record a verse at a time while sitting upright in my wheelchair, and then immediately lying back down in the reclined position to avoid overexertion. I was even able to record the flute while sitting upright, with my elbows propped up on yoga blocks, but I had to be very careful to only record a single line and not for more than a few minutes at a time — and I still crashed.

My story is not meant as inspiration porn or as ‘you can overcome any limitation if you just set your mind to it’ message. I had long periods where doing this was completely impossible, and it was only because I got a bit better with medication that it was doable. I also still grieve the loss of my once powerful voice that always worked, although I have accepted the more delicate one. My message is that creativity is vital for many of us and should be prioritised if at all possible.

Making this album has also come with a lot of grief. I often feel 10% pride and 90% sorrow, because this was not how I imagined a recording process to be: All alone in a darkened room, waiting, often for months at a time for my voice to open up, not knowing if it ever will again, only to record one verse. I also grieve that I cannot market it in the way I would like, or be able to play the songs live, or even just online on a video.

I simply want to express that it was damn hard to create this album but perhaps there are techniques that might inspire you to create your own creative work. I can say for sure that chopping everything up into tiny pieces, mustering up an insane amount of patience, pacing like I’ve never done before, and finding tons of motivation to be heard was the only way I could do this. This was not done through hard work and pushing through! Also, without a deep, spiritual motivation, this would not have been possible.

And please be kind to yourself — there are just periods (some times excrutiatingly long or endless ones) where chronic illness or trauma or your body or mind prevents you from doing any creative work. This does not mean you are not creative or have failed in any way.

It was also made possible because of great privilege. I have a brother who is a professional musician who could play the piano for me and help me with other musicians. I also live with parents who have the resources to help me out financially and medically. I couldn’t have done this without medication or the professional-standard care my parents provide. Creating music is also expensive and I’m not earning anything from the album, all income goes to ME/CFS research through Open Medicine Foundation.

The songs seek to convey the experience of a broken body, deteriorating slowly with no sense of control. I explore the feelings and experience of when life becomes precarious, having to face stigma and discrimination, and of observing life differently when you are no longer a part of it.

You can listen to or buy the album here.

Listen to or buy my album here

Help support the cause by purchasing the album here.

Hi friend!

I got really triggered the other day by something a social media consultant said to me, and I had to sit with it for a bit to figure out what was going on inside me. And this is in no way to blame her, people are allowed to have opinions and she was very kind and complementary of my music. This is my own inner stuff coming up. She said to me that my themes were very heavy and she could only get through three songs because they made her sad. She suggested I also music that is lighter.

Fair enough, that’s her opinion, and she is not my audience. It would have been nice if I could have left it at that.

But something inside me was triggered. At first, I felt like my entire existence as a person living with chronic illness was dismissed. Chronic illness is sad, it’s dark, it’s traumatic and no fun. That’s my life. It’s heavy. More than heavy. And while I’m an incredibly positive and effervescent person, nothing can change that chronic illness is a sad experience. Everyday, I feel like my existence is ‘too much/too difficult/too heavy’ for some people. And it probably is.

But then I was taken back to that little girl who quit doing anything creative because she always felt her natural expression wasn’t good enough. It was too dark, too deep, too emotional, too this too that. When I was younger, I could never find myself creatively and this was partly the reason.

I have for a long time had this feeling that I need to change who I am to fit in and be successful. I need to change my experience with chronic illness — or change how I perceive it towards something lighter. I need to write happy songs. I need to lighten up. Be more like all the others.

I’ve had this voice in my head for so long that I need to learn how to write upbeat happy songs so I can be more accepted (I googled ‘how to write happy songs’). And yes, I would like to learn that skill, but not for that reason.

In the beginning of this year, I made a commitment to myself to be honest about who I am and not hide myself. I’ve been hiding my entire life and it’s made me feel invisible.

That voice telling me I have to be someone else, has created so much tension and unhappiness inside me — it’s time to let it go.

I decided to truly love those deep, dark, emotional aspects of myself and start seeing them as a superpower.

I believe one of my unique artistic skill sets is to turn something dark into something beautiful. And one of the things I hope to do with my music is to get people feeling their feelings in different ways, and accepting them as they are — maybe accessing feelings they haven’t accessed for a long time.

And yes, maybe I will write happy songs in the future, but as a result of me wanting to express that side of me, not because I’m scared I won’t fit in.

Tell me…

Are there parts of you that you aren’t allowing to be seen and why?

Is it possible to love these parts of yourself?

Do you dislike ‘sad songs’?

I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Did you miss?

Mama, Why Won’t They Listen — DEMO

The nervous system-friendly way I access emotions for songwriting

Can’t Help Falling In Love With You [Cover]

Have you listened to There Are No More Heroes?

I wrote this song when I felt the world had turned its back on me. I felt doctors had given up, friends had given up, family had given up. I felt disillusioned with the world, but something grew inside me that helped me carry on.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or purchase here

I wanted to share this new song with you as a rough demo. It will take a while before I get it properly recorded and produced and I was just too excited to get it out there in some way.

Mama, Why Won’t They Listen? is a song about not being heard by those in power when change is greatly needed.

I think anyone who is dependent on politics can resonate with this song. Or anyone who simply doesn’t feel heard by their loved ones.

One of my main songwriting techniques is to listen inwardly to things I am saying over and over again or feelings or mental images that keep popping up. This isn’t the most effective technique as I often don’t have much going on inside as not much is happening in my life.

But the line ‘why won’t they listen?’ has been there for a long time.

I live with a very stigmatised and misunderstood illness called ME/CFS. I won’t go into details about the political history of it, but in short it is a disease that disproportionally affects women, and because of that it has been thought to be a psychological illness — a reaction to modern life or hysteria of some sorts.

The majority of countries around Europe officially see it as a biological illness now (although the stigma still lingers), but in Denmark the official sentiment is still that it is a psycho-social disorder.

In 2020 I started writing opinion pieces that were published in national newspapers about this situation and how dangerous it is for us patients. I did a lot of advocacy back then and nothing happened. There is still a lot of advocacy going on and the needle hasn’t moved much.

On top of that I have a friends with ME/CFS who have no parents to care for them who are trying to get care from social services. They just won’t listen to their needs and they are getting sicker.

Mama, why won’t they listen? was my brain’s response to all of this.

The song is not very text-heavy, I felt like I have said what I wanted to say and I wanted to keep it basic so the main point is focused on.

Here are the lyrics:

Verse 1

I thought it would be

Blue skies today

I thought it would be

A different kind of day

Pre-chorus

A day of change

A day where we are not forgotten

Chorus

Mama, why won’t they listen?

Did I not say it right?

Mama, why won’t they listen?

Is my demeanour not polite?

Oooooh

I tried to tell them I matter and I still belong

Oooooh mama

Why won’t they listen as I sing my song?

Verse 2

When will our blood

Be cleansed of grief

When can we breathe

Again?

Pre-chorus

When there is change

When we are no longer forgotten

Chorus

Mama, why won’t they listen?

Did I not say it right?

Mama, why won’t they listen?

Is my demeanour not polite?

Oooooh

I tried to tell them I matter and I still belong

Oooooh mama

Why won’t they listen as I sing my song?

Sometimes I sit down at the piano and a motif or melody comes out of me immediately. This was not one of those times.

I have documented the process for you to see.

First, I tried out a few chord progressions. It took a while before I found the right vibe (but not the right chords):

I could feel the vibe in my body and began trying some other chords and the melody then came quite quickly, but I still had to faff around to get it right. That’s just how songwriting works:

I’m really looking forward to producing this one. I want it to be a sparse arrangement with just the piano chords and then have some background humming of sorts, maybe a very low flute drone. We’ll see what I come up with.

Enjoy!

Tell me…

What do you think of the song?

Do you resonate with it?

Do you sometimes feel like they don’t listen?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Hi friend!

I discovered songwriting when I was living with a much milder version of the illness I have (ME/CFS). At that time, I could still go outside, I could (with difficulty) do my own shopping and cooking and I could take care of myself.

I started songwriting when my voice teacher at the time told me “I can see you have a lot to tell the world.” It was like I was given a permission slip to be creative.

I went home and started writing songs, just like that. They weren’t very good at first, but then I started paying closer attention to songs. I studied Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, Joni Mitchell, Irish Sean Nos, Ayub Ogada, Geoffrey Oryema, Miriam Makeba and many others from different parts of the world.

A favourite technique of mine at the time I call ‘Mumbling,’ where you find a melody and then start mumbling sounds as you listen to it. Eventually words or even whole sentences emerged. If they didn’t, I would at least have caught the vibe of the song.

Allowing the melody to guide you is a great way of tapping into the subconscious and I was always surprised and in awe at what came out. At that time a lot of grief came out. It was how I learned how affected I was by my body breaking.

Another favourite technique at the time I called the ‘Dali Method.’ I would lie down with my eyes closed, a pen and paper in my hands, and relax my whole body, and then I would begin to notice any images inside my head. I would then immediately write down the descriptions of these images or any other words or sentences that came to me.

But illness has changed this.

Because of inflammation in my brain and neurons moving slower (yes, they move slower in an ME/CFS brain), I cannot do these exercises anymore.

I cannot produce images in my mind anymore — it’s called aphantasia. If I see something it’s either an outline or a really glitchy, fuzzy image and I can’t hold it long enough to describe it. Also, no words pop up, I don’t think my brain can produce fuzzy images while coming up with words.

The ‘Mumbling’ exercise rarely works for me either, as my brain just doesn’t produce words, but I do it anyway to see if I can catch the vibe of a song.

So the techniques I use now are very different from when my brain was better.

Today I use an exercise I call ‘Word dumps,’ where I take different texts (a poem, a newspaper, a book etc,) and find one word per page, never more than one word. I do this intuitively and fast. Eventually, I have a list of words and I start either combining them or making my own sentences. In this way, it feels like I bypass the brain a bit (I know the brain is still working, but it feels easier).

I also have a notebook next to me where I can write down anything I hear (which isn’t much as I’m just lying in bed) or anything that pops up in my inner dialogue (which is often the same stuff).

I do miss the flow and the awe of my brain producing images and words and stuff, but I have accepted that that is how things are right now.

For chord progressions I used to study world music songs as well as jazz and folk traditions. I can’t do that anymore. Instead, I either play around on the piano for five minutes or I take a song I like, figure out the chords and then make it my own. I might change the mode of the scale, or add chords or change the version of the chord or change the chords altogether.

I do miss finding inspiration in other traditions. It felt fun, expansive and exciting.

I’m incredibly grateful that I can still write songs, even though the process feels harder and less intuitive.

I’m working on a song called Mama Why Won’t They Listen? right now. I’ll share more at a later stage. I managed to record a lot of the process, so I’ll be sharing that with you too.

Tell me…

What’s your creative process like right now, if you have one?

Has anything changed?

What’s your favourite way of creating right now?

I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments below.

Leave a comment

Did you miss?

Fish and Bird [Tom Waits cover]

Behind the song: Lonely Birds

The nervous system-friendly ways I access emotions for songwriting

Have you listened to There Are No More Heroes?

I wrote this song when I felt the world had turned its back on me. I felt doctors had given up, friends had given up, family had given up. I felt disillusioned with the world, but something grew inside me that helped me carry on.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.

Listen or purchase here

I want to introduce you to one of the songs on my album. It’s called Lonely Birds and is about the western loneliness epidemic.

I wrote it when I had become mostly bedbound by chronic illness and was isolated and lonely myself, but I started noticing how lonely other (able-bodied) people were too. I noticed how they isolated themselves without needing to — or, more precisely, how our society created isolation.

Purchase or stream here

All income for the first year (possibly more) will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp.

If you can’t listen to music, then here are the lyrics.

I grew up in East Africa where everyone says ‘hi’ when walking past you. A brief moment of connection, but connection nevertheless. Or where people show up on random occasions at your house — something I have never experienced in Denmark.

I also noticed how no one had seemed to notice I was gone. None of my old friends checked in on me and I felt how structural loneliness had become. Our western (or is it more northern) societies are facing a loneliness epidemic.

In Denmark, the number of people who feel lonely has doubled since the year 2000. In 2021, 27% of men felt lonely, while 34% of women felt lonely. It was especially the elderly above 75 and young people between 16-24 who felt lonely.

Lonely Birds is the last song I wrote for my debut album. I wrote it using only an iPad and crappy headphones. I was lying in bed and was not able to get to a piano, so I used GarageBand on my iPad which has this programme where you can tell the app which chords to play when and in what rhythm (it has four rhythms to choose from). So I plugged in the chord progression (it’s basically an Andalusian cadence) and I started humming into the microphone of my crappy headphones. It sounded absolutely terrible, but I started to hear a melody.

This is what my first go at the melody sounded like:

I also did a technique I love doing very much, called Mumbling, where I sing the melody and mumble whatever sounds come to me. Eventually I had the first line: See them swim into murky caves | Looking for the light or rainbows and with that mental image I immediately knew what the song was about.

There was something very lonely about swimming into murky caves to seek happiness — knowing, as the writer, that they would never find it, but instead disconnect themselves from others — swimming away from them.

This song is a great example of how limitations can create magic. I didn’t have the energy to create a new chord progression for the chorus, so the chords stay the same throughout the song, except for the bridge. I think this gives the song that lonely, slightly monotonous (but in no way boring) feel. Had I had more energy, it would have been a completely different song.

My favourite lines in the song are They never look into each other’s eyes | They shield themselves from harm | Away from storms | And the minefields of their hearts. We would rather avoid intimacy and connection than be vulnerable. I’ve struggled with this myself and it has created a lot of loneliness within me too.

Jonas Müller (my brother) plays the piano and David Hagen plays the double bass. François Perdriau has mixed the song and Pete Maher has mastered it. I feel so incredibly lucky to be able to have my song accompanied by such excellent musicians. They really brought out the vibe in the song.

All proceeds for the first year (probably more) will go to Open Medicine Foundationfor vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. You can support the cause by purchasing the music on Bandcamp and by sharing as wide and far as possible.

Purchase or listen here

Tell me…

Have you felt lonely of late?

Do you have a loneliness epidemic in your country, too?

What are your favourite lines from the song?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Leave a comment

Thank you so much for reading this post. If you know someone who could benefit from this, then please share this page with them. You are also more than welcome to share it in your Facebook or other support groups.

Share