Ballad of the Bard LIVE #

Background #

There’s been a demo version of this on Patreon for years now, and it’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever written. I think the lyrics speak for themselves; know I mean every single one and that I am singing directly to you. Thanks to the support of my audience over the years, I’ve been able to cultivate something of a life for myself. I can only hope the art I give you is payment enough for what you have given me; the freedom to be myself, as I am, no matter what that looks like.

If you need me, I’ll be here a-singing and a-strumming.

This recording is from the season premiere of the fourth season of my musical variety show, the Lullaby Lounge; just me, a guitar, and a microphone. If you’d like to listen to the whole show as a podcast, you can find it here:

I wrote it because it’s exactly how I feel about my music. I, sort of, realized as I was getting older the place that I held in people’s lives. I don’t know how many people are lucky enough to realize, um, the effect they have on people when they’re, like, in the moment and present and alive, so I’m very grateful for the experience. Um. But I noticed that the messages that I was getting from people were always like, “Oh you helped me through this really difficult time. Your music was a way that I could feel release. It got me through this tough– this– these moments in my life, these dark moments in my life.” People would tell me really intimate details about themselves. Like, not in a weird way. But, be like, this is the struggle that I went through, that you helped me through, whether or not you knew you were helping me. And from that experience, it happened enough times where I finally wrote a song about that I was like, “I– I accept. You’re telling me that this is the job that I have been placed on this earth to do. I will do it happily.” And this is, like, my first kind of song where I admitted that what I did was helping people and starting to step into my power as a performer, as someone who really, like, got what they were doing on a emotional level.
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It sounds like a drinking song! You know what I mean? It sounds like an old English song that you’d sing in a pub with all your friends and I hope that when people listen to it, they can hear the many voices of the other people who are listening to that song and being like, “Yes, I am– The adult way to look at a very difficult situation is that I understand this is not the end of my life. Like, I understand objectively what I’m going through will not ruin me. But, golly, why? Why is it hurting so much and why is it happening like this? Why do I have to experience it?” And that’s why that song is like, “If I have to do it, y– like, this is, this is being human. Unfortunately.” You have to deal with the feelings.

Lyrics #