It's 2023. Yeah, it's not if it was 1995 then you have to quit. Okay, you can find it at htp backslash backslash colon www.ivl.angelfire.com. Hello and welcome to WNC original music episode 170, the HMS Antelope episode.
Very special episode this week because we have the very talented and personable Ivy Eld. Ivy Eld is an actual area musician and songwriter. It's also a mental health professional for over a decade and a half. She has a self titled EP out now that's self titled means is also called Ivy Eld.
In case you didn't know that, none of everyone knows that Ivy considers her music to be another facet of how she shows up in the world in authentic and passionate service, both as a musician and as a therapist. And I can tell you I mentioned that part out of her bio because that really comes through in the discussion that you're about to hear. You can find all our music at ivl.com and I don't usually mention upcoming shows in the podcast because I want it to be you know evergreen and I want people to listen to this in 2045 and be confused. But on August 15th 2023, only 2023 Ivy has her album release show at the Great Eagle in actual nookerland.
So make sure to check the show notes for that. And now here is Ivy Eld. Magic in the Blue. This song is this is kind of my theme song.
I feel like just for life in general and as a therapist for 15 years, I have had the privilege of working with a lot of people, now getting a lot of trauma with a lot of people. And the first 10 years of my life or my career as a psychotherapist was working with combat veterans and I still have some that I see and and I've learned so much from them. They have been some of my greatest teachers by far and there was a wonderful Vietnam veteran who followed the Coda traditions and was one of the ways one of the ways that he would really say he navigated his own trauma was through the Coda spirituality and learning from his Lecoda teachers. But also he was an artist and an artist and a creator.
And so there's this phrase that will forever be stuck in my head from him that becoming a maker saved my life. And that's what he got back from Vietnam and horrific trauma that he experienced there and so much lost from his unit. Most of his platoon was killed and he's pretty public with this story. So it's not anything I'm sharing that he wouldn't approve of but just it's that stuck with me and and has become something that's been a part of my own process as a psychotherapist to just see the power of arts and creativity.
And I wrote this song, I was experiencing some grief but didn't realize that I wrote this song really for future me. I was one of those kind of prophetic songs that I wrote and my brother was a big part of my life and a big reason I became a psychotherapist, a sufferer from schizophrenia and just battled cancer for many many years and passed away in 2021. And so just a little over a year ago but I could not sit down and play that song without just sobbing. It was medicine, it was a song that I wrote for myself really for medicine but the song is also something that I just believe so passionately and just kind of sums up the power of creating.
And if you listen to kind of I guess you call it like the second chorus, it's you know keep creating, keep on making in the way that only you do. It is what will save us. You know, the way that only we do is what will save us as we face the darkest blue. Everyone has our inside them including me Ron.
Oh sorry it's not a secret. It's not a secret. It's not a secret. It's just not something I say a lot.
Yes. Everyone has our inside them and how we see and walk the world, create beauty, offer love. This is how we alchemize the blue and so I really truly believe that especially there's just so much grief in this world and I've experienced that personally but held a lot of space for some amazing people that have been through a lot of you know just a lot of awful awful things. I had to edit myself because there's more code in words to describe some of the things that they've been through.
But I truly just believe that music but any creation, any way that we're creating is so generative and I just feel like it's the only way we can really survive this crazy world we live in. So that's the song that's magic in the blue and yeah. You were talking about how emotional you get with singing the song. Do you have songs and this might be one of them but songs that you've written or just from other people that you sing or listen to to sort of approach an emotion or invoke an emotion in yourself.
You might not be feeling sad but you're like I kind of feel sad a little bit. I feel like delving into that. Someone listened to this song. Yes yeah absolutely and are you looking for specifics or just kind of wondering.
Well I was wondering but also if you have a specific one there would be. Yeah well there's just so many. I feel like there's certain songs that honestly for me it's the sound of the cello and my son actually is nine years old and I'm just started playing and right now he's in the swaggy bass so it's not when he plays it's not eliciting that but that's kind of how he ended up choosing that instrument as he would tune in and hear a cello and I have the same response. It's like there's something that Dean melancholy sound of the cello is just so evocative and I think I'm not alone in that.
It's such a powerful sound so I think that's what comes to mind in this moment but there's so many specific songs I could probably go through a name if I thought about it but absolutely that can help access. I really believe music helps access certain parts of who we are. Sometimes that are more buried like the sadness we might be going to the grocery store and have to present ourselves in a certain way or be in a business meeting or whatever it might be and the sadness gets kind of tucked back in there and I think music is just such a powerful way to just target these parts that are so deeply buried and might not get as much airtime as others. Do you have anyone that you is like a sounding board for your like works in progress if you're working on something you have some of that you consistently send that stuff to?
I mean because I would do it if there isn't. It varies. My best friend is wonderful I send a lot of stuff to her and she kind of will bounce ideas back. It's changed over the years because I was so private for so long I wouldn't share what anyone in Seoul song was done and I know I'm not alone in that.
I think there's a lot of singer songwriters that kind of struggle with that that vice of perfectionism so I wouldn't want to share it until it got complete but now at the stage of my songwriting and just feeling like it noticed knowing the power of collaboration and knowing how helpful it can be to put my music out there but it has to be kind of a certain place. I think I have to feel like the I've listened to the muse. I've kind of let like spirit as it were just to kind of have the spirit of the song to feel that before I'll necessarily collaborate but you can experience that while you're collaborating with people too. I've had that experience too so where it's just like you're feeling that together as you're creating something.
So it's something that kind of starts with me. It's like it's more I have more ownership in the song. I probably tend to try to complete it and then send it out versus just like sharing little ideas but I'm playing around with that more. I think I'm getting braver and doing that a little earlier than I would in the past.
I really like this EP by the way. I don't know if I said that already but it sounds really nice. Thank you. Yeah I'm sorting my drop of sun.
That's where I got it. It was drop of sun in West Asheville. They are wonderful amazing folks there for anyone looking to record. I'm actually not familiar with that.
That's the first time I've heard of that studio. Are they newer just I don't know what the guys like I thought I did. Yeah they've been around. You know that will be getting to ask Adam who Adam McDaniel is the he's the one that was the the master engineer and I know that the building itself if you drive down Pat and it's beautiful it's a beautiful space and they'll give you a tour.
They're really open to anyone in the community that wants to check out their space. It's just absolutely gorgeous and most studios are often kind of cave-like. It's really rare to have such like to have light in a studio and it just it shifted the whole aesthetic for me. It shifted the energy and so that they call it drop of sun because they have these beautiful the way it was constructed.
The sun beams in and just lands on the studio at different times of the day. It was just really beautiful and powerful kind of how it different times of the day recording and having the sun come in and it just lit up the whole the whole live room. So yeah it's beautiful. Dragon's Tale.
That is my Foundry song. That song it's unique for me because I was really feeling I was really wanting to write on electric and I normally write most of my stuff on acoustic guitar or piano and that particular day I just was really feeling sassy and wanted to borrow friends electric and so I did my friend has a 90s lip set that gives him less fall which is apparently it's apparently like fashioned after the vintage 50s. I tell you more about it. It's his baby so it felt really special to be able to borrow to borrow his guitar and this song was one that just flowed out really quickly.
It's one of those that it was kind of the lightning bolt in a matter of I don't know 20 minutes the song 20 30 minutes the song was done and it's always a good cue to me that I am a crier you know I always kind of say I cry as much as I pee because it's just kind of embracing it's like we all have tear ducts it's their three so it's probably the therapist to me and just two different emotions with their similar result. Yeah having to be as a psychologist you think having to be real bad is in motion I mean that's his own feeling. I ask everybody that question by the way not just you. It always comes up in every right just organically.
But that's a good cue to me that it's yours we're kind of like oh that like I said something there is something that land and it was a release and like not as I said something you know hopefully it lands with other people but it was like as I think the best art is it's for us first it's medicine first and it's at least for me that's been something I've had to learn. I'm such a helper which this song is about too it's about like being someone that is such a helper loves to be there be present for other people not inherently a bad thing but for me just coming from the background I came from from the trauma that I experienced when I was younger just learned some kind of codependent ways of walking through the world and being in relationship with people and kind of into dynamics with some people where it was really hard for me to take up space or just say no I mean obviously that song is kind of a it's my lana song kind of it's it's ironic into the studio the song ironic because it was so impactful for me I was in my twenties and give away my age there but that that little pill came out when I was in college my freshman year and I just listened to that over and over and over and for this you know nice little Minnesota girl that just really struggled with standing up for myself saying no and expressing anger which is something that is harder especially in our culture for women to be able to show and express like a lana's was one of those musicians and artists that just started to give voice to that side of who we are as human beings and I think specifically for women just that that was such an impactful that does seem that seemed like a almost a cultural change that whole album yeah I mean I'm sure it wasn't the first I'm sure that she wasn't the first to express all that but it really caught hold and had an effect it seemed like it did it did and I think it was probably the season of life developmentally that I was in as well and just kind of figuring out who I was and and stepping into my voice in a different way so this song is very much as you probably noticed from some of my songs I love imagery and sometimes like a mythical creature like a dragon will show up or sometimes it's other animals in nature I just tend to get a lot of inspiration from or nature and from kind of the dreams and the things that show up and so I actually had a kind of a specific dream around dragons and connected to my family and so this is this is not about one particular person drawing boundaries with one particular person it's really kind of a life pattern and but a pattern that started yelling and showed up in current relationships and just realizing that it was time to let go of sometimes it was letting go of certain people sometimes it was just letting go of certain dynamics within relationships and standing up more for myself so so someone's out there thinking listen to this song and thinking oh she's talking about me then they should disabuse themselves of that no it's not about anyone particular person thing it's it is there's definitely some inspirations from certain people who are you hear that ex-boyfriend it's not you sir until I'm so oh that you to me that me river king how do you do you need me harsh and storm just like you my son horizon is my requisite love song it's and I sound I sound so so cold saying it like that but there was a little they made me write this piece of crap it feels like it's just not I don't tend to write love songs and nothing against artists that I love that write lots of beautiful love songs that's just I think for me that that's more a rarity and so this is but it this song is really meaningful to me though in that most of my songs are a little bit more confessional and kind of connected to the the therapisty part of me that can't help it like processing different emotions but not always connected to romantic love this song is specifically song that I wrote for my husband and run our 20th anniversary so it was like a like right before our 20th anniversary and I wrote this song and so it's it's really hard to write a love song for someone you've known and been in love with for 20 years and gone through the seasons with and this was this was my humble attempt to do that and so the imagery really came to me around we just had we met in California as you can talk on this song if you hear the beginning lyrics and that's where like we've got a Monterey and Carmel and those areas and we got married in Pacific Grove so beautiful area that's a beautiful area to fall in love Santa's aye not so much over go to city we go out to San Francisco sometimes so yeah and we were working both working in social work and working in a drug and alcohol rehab center for teenagers and that's that is how we we met so the cold graph as walls were um were there in San Jose and so this this song is kind of me as much as I can in a nutshell kind of going through going back to California and because beaches and the ocean and my husband grew up in San Diego and the beach is just such a like a connecting place for him I think Horizon was the image that came up and I just thought what a beautiful metaphor for two very different people coming together and so you can't you hear that throughout the song just the contrast and you know I'm a Leo he's a Pisces I've got like more fire and intensity in my personality he's more a show called you know the walking Xanaxes of the world than you grab nighs that's the so that's him like and and not that I don't have my my calm chill parts too and he doesn't have his fire but we're just we're we're very different personality wise I'm extroverted he's introverted for the most part and yeah and lots of other just differences but but like to kind of focus on where we meet that horizon is where we meet and there's so much that we do have that we connect on value wise and just we are in the world and so yeah that's that's my that was my 20th anniversary gift or one of I should say that was the free one that took a lot of it was a labor of love but and he gave you three coupons for back ropes yes that's all too earlier today um what's something you've done that you're really proud of can't say working with veterans you already said that I know I did and I I mean the cliche thing that comes to mind but it's it's also really true is raising two humans like that's more than anything more than any kind of award or accolades I think raising humans in this in this world in this wild world we live in is um yeah it's just it's the hardest most beautiful thing I've ever done and just being able to to be on the journey with these with my with my kids and watch these humans grow I think I'm just I'm pretty pretty proud of them and of just continuing to show up I don't know if you have kids but it's yeah no I've never done anything to be proud I get it say what you're saying not at all that's just for me is it's just so there is apparent it's like that it's it's so consuming it's better for worse like it's um so but yeah I'm I can think of something non-cliche I think give me a minute no no you don't have to think of something that's there's no right or wrong there are there are no wrong answers yes there's no right answers there's a lot of wrong answers if you say something like well uh I was at the Capitol on January 6th I'm pretty proud of that you know that's not that's not right um I well and you know what I'm really proud of myself for putting this album out in the world honestly like that's the right answer yeah music related yeah yeah yeah I like I was I was really I was really proud of myself honestly I and I think I was kind of waiting for at this age I think it's so important just to be able to say that like rather than waiting for whether it's parents or family members or friends or fans or whoever it might be like just I think that is the nice thing about at 45 putting out your first album is I feel like I know I know myself pretty damn well at this point like I know I know um you know I'm continuing to grow every day always for sure the rest of my life but I feel pretty comfortable in my own in my own skin and in when I was 25 putting out my first album I think there just would be a whole lot more um not that I wasn't dealing with imposter syndrome and insecurities and things like that but it's also it just feels like um hey I did I did this thing while I was juggling this other business with my private practices of therapists while raising two kids um and it was hard I had to fight for it and I did have my own inner demons and critics coming out for sure in the process but but I did it so I think that was that was a feat that it looks different at 45 then I would at 25 and again not taking away from anyone putting out their first album at 25 it's just I think that's for me I remember wanting to do that very deeply it just wasn't I don't think it was my time and for all sorts of reasons and now I think I know like I probably would put out the album and then just be washed away and the waters of what everyone would say and maybe that would be the only album I would ever I would ever create I don't know you know I'm just kind of guessing based on who I was back and now it's just like now I'm gonna do this for me and I'm gonna keep putting out music because this isn't the last one I feel very very strongly I'm already feeling excited about new creative ideas brewing and kind of leaning more into my ancestry and learning songs connected to kind of my Scandinavian industry and I'll tell you more about that when I listen to World North but yeah I'm just that that feels yeah it feels pretty solid at this point it's like it doesn't matter what people say so okay more from IVL in just a few moments I want to remind you that you can find the music from IVL'd at IVL.com coincidence and also don't forget to check the show notes for links to her streaming sites and social media as well also for a limited time in the show notes we'll have a link to her show at the Grey Eagle August 15th 2023 so don't be trying to go there in 2024 don't forget to subscribe to the podcast wncoriginalmusic.com or wncoriginalmusic wherever you get your podcast episodes corrections and clarifications from last week's episode with Jennifer Alvarado crows are larger than Ravens but Ravens are smaller than crows I got it backwards anyway we were both right this is niggongering and you're listening to wnc original music podcast we'll see tell me about a song like what you think if you wrote the perfect song what would they be like what so what would that be like as far as what would it look like yeah yeah what it sound like if you were describing it without like singing it this is first time asking this question so it might use it's a hard answer I should have given you that one in advance it's an essay question I feel like it would depend on the perfect song like if you're saying for me is it like what I was just saying about vocalization and expression like sometimes when I'm just stepping away and using this instrument like a perfect song would just be probably more improv expression just letting things kind of run through me more of things that you wouldn't necessarily hear like on this album which are more crafted songs and kind of traditional traditional structure and all that but I think yeah the train of thought from this last conversation is more when I think of something like perfect just feeling perfect that that would be just being able to express perfectly and like that coming through the voice so more more voice and proverb or just things that I would do probably stuff that isn't even warm-ups or when I when I do things just as more like playing around just like vocal play so that would but as far as a perfect song I don't know if I'm answering the question there's no there's no right answer yeah it really depends on context so like if if I'm thinking of creating something that I want to share that I want to put out there lyrics are super important to me I'm just a lyric sort of lyrics like a word nerd and love metaphors and really helping lift people into a picture into an experience and so I try to do that with with how I write so I think that like from the perspective of someone else so we vocalizing and just like having a lot of fun playing with my voice and it feeling really good like that might not necessarily be someone else's experience and I think they like they might not land for them the way it lands for me but I think the perfect song would probably be something that lands for both for both me as the person writing and expressing in the artist and someone receiving and listening and of course that it's always going to translate different for each person because you're essentially kind of my one of my favorite songwriting coaches talks about the idea of we we create the house in like we create the house our song is the house but everybody comes in they bring their own furniture they move in and set things up however like it's all their context all their experience and so I love that idea of just letting letting the art be what it is to each person and letting it land even if things feel a little bit more explicit like when I first heard that I kept thinking home and I need to write like more like Bonie Bear and my stuff is too explicit it's too it's too like singer-songwriterish and it means to be more vague and more critical but now I really believe that even if you're sharing a story that's pretty explicit that's pretty like this is my experience I think people still are putting their own furniture in the room they're still being their experience and saying oh I get that or I resonate with that or I'm curious about this or like that makes me think of this they're still doing that even either with a more explicit song so in my life in my life more than girl or to take my place at the table of the martyrs and saints but they smile as always digging in my fur how men to be unleashed and unfair no longer play and small I will not be but my voice matters my song will not be repressed a tiny spark has now burst into place is I feel like that is is really like a climax song on this this EP if like it feels like it's where magic in the blue is kind of this is my life's mission like this is who I am in the world this is something I believe so passionately while north is really it feels like there's a lot of build-up in the songs to this point of like reclaiming really reclaiming who I am on many levels like reclaiming right my roots was part of that including my Norwegian and Swedish roots I'm about 60ish percent Norwegian Swedish 20ish percent Scottish Irish and so this this was really kind of but all that was really lost like as far as my family being my great-grandparents were immigrants from Norway but that was just like language was gone by the time that I was I came along just like so many other immigrant families like the simulation and the desire to fit in we lost so much of our culture specifically European immigrants but then you know you have just you're talking about like indigenous folks and and African slaves like their culture was ripped away in a completely traumatic violent way and so but I think the common threat is that we all lost connection in different ways there's a there's a so for me I think it's this just this this reclamation for me has been a really powerful kind of coming back to my voice coming back to my roots Ivy Elves is based on that the name Ivy Elle that I chose is my artist name is based on my great-grandmother for Norwegian my great excuse me yeah my great-grandmother Hilda Ivarsson and so Ivar and in Norwegian is passion and Ivarsson looks like Ivarsson kind of the what we would say here in the US but that's how I got Ivy and then Elle is fire in Swedish so it's the Swedish word for fire and so me choosing that name was a real like kind of invocation and it's connected I think to Wild North in a lot of ways I feel like Ivy Elle really wrote Wild North I think that when that song came to me that was that was another one of those like kind of from on high like like it just came and it really was like the song set as I was it was a January it was I remember very clearly it was a Leo Fomun it was like this big beautiful Fomun on a cold January day and I wrote this beside a river a Creek Reams Creek in Weaverville I was staying there for a little solitude creative retreat and had a fire outside and the snow just started to fall and it was just so magical and so beautiful and just felt this really fierce connection to a grove in Minnesota where there's a lot of Scandinavians like me there's not as many in Ashau so John around Scandinavians are got a lot of friends from a lot of different backgrounds and a lot of cultures but not a lot of not a lot of Scandinavians and there were just tons of us in Minnesota so there was a huge aggression of Scandinavians to Minnesota back in the late 1800s but so that song Wild North is about like Minnesota and really about my Nordic roots so that song is yeah it was just a kind of again that like flash of really feeling almost like my ancestors were singing through me as as dramatic as that sounds it really felt like that the way it came out the way it came out just was different I'm like what is this is different and even even a chorus if you hear it's it switches into my hierarchy and just there's flips that I'm doing with my voice that are a little different than things that I would have necessarily normally done and it just it was something I felt like I didn't think about it just happened but now as I'm learning more about cooling which is a a Swedish herding like it's how they heard the the cow's home essentially like this ancient colony been doing it for hundreds of years and do one of ours now I am yeah I wish I could say cool me I want I'm trying to learn that that is something but it's very like I'll send you a yawn at Yona yon and then is does beautiful cool main oh yeah I was saying oh yeah like hear that yes yeah you really said that like you thought oh so you know yon kapartan yeah okay you seem like someone who would know about I'm more like you said do you know about Spivey's Corner hot calling contest and I'm like oh yeah exactly what you're talking about but but that song all that to say that there's there's just something I think that is like that song is summoning me forward into the next album I really believe I almost didn't even put it on this album because I thought like it's not gonna fit oh yeah so are you still recording am I still recording yes I heard you click so I was like I'm gonna have him click it on or maybe you were okay no I'm sure you may be nervous now but my it almost didn't make it that album because I felt like this doesn't fit it's a little too am I it's still very like an indie folk rock song like it's not I don't like it's outside that genre for sure but the vocals are leaning in a little bit more to to that Scandinavian like there was again something that felt a little bit more ancient a little bit more kind of connected to where I feel like I'm going or heading and don't commit me to this because I'm an artist and who knows where like how it will shift as I continue to play with it but I do feel like really called to keep playing around with and getting to those music roots that Celtic the Celtic and Nordic music roots I'm just I'm feeling like there's something really powerful about song and language and kind of reclaiming and knowing where we come from and understanding that and I think it's really healing so for me it's just even like on a selfish level just feels like it's gonna be a healing journey for me to learn those songs and musical ancestry on both sides and I just think that that there's gonna be something about that that's that's powerful for me but I'm also a real believer that we heal collectively so anything that I'm doing personally and then sharing will hopefully be something that's healing for other people as well so I grew up in the church and I grew up in as a nice you know as a nice minnesota girl like everything is minnesota nice people are nice which I really think they're just a lot of passive aggressive people that suppress a lot yeah I've heard like wobegon I know what it's like I know I've heard it so I know exactly what everything's like up there there you go everybody lives in a town of 400 people and does that is yes yeah yeah no I grew up in the Twin Cities so I grew I grew up in much more urban experience obviously than Lake Wobegon but there's definitely that my grandparents from small towns and and you there is I grew up after so it was a good good Baptist girl and on this song is really that's been a whole journey of like deconstructing and just kind of coming to my own spiritual beliefs and part of that that song is really a reclamation of these parts of me that were like I couldn't show certain aspects of myself in in the baptist church for instance or in just kind of in the culture that I grew up grew up in and grew up with in my family and so this song is really really a reclamation and even when I sang it in the studio that was the song that I just felt this really strong presence of my brother being there with me and it's gonna sound weird and wild but I'll just this was my experience in the studio was everything was just transformed in my mind like I was on a few word in Norway like singing my guts out at the microphone completely transported and so the recording I feel like captures kind of captures that that wildness and the experience yeah and I think my voice opened up in a way that it never has as well and I think like I'm thankful to my vocal teacher who really is helpful in that process of freeing like helping free my voice and just helping from a technical standpoint my vocal words and suffering from similar insight is and just some things that were really more of a like a kind of a physical aspect but also whenever you work with the voice this is the thing is it absolutely is metaphorical and metaphysical and just it's a really powerful experience so my vocal coach would say what he does is like is very it's in the lines of therapy because he can't work with someone's voice from a singing perspective is very vulnerable and people speaking like speakers that come to work with him just you're tapping into something like so much gets trapped in the voice there's so many stories about our voice there's just so much that's connected to that so so this song really feels like that's the big big aspect of this song is reclaiming reclaiming these parts and I don't want to get too much of the voice because that would be like ou-jay is is really like all about all about voice oh yeah it is interesting that you know the that makes sense because the voice is like probably our main way you tell me you're a psychologist I'm not be wrong but I would say that the voice is from our primary way that we convey emotion so of course it's tied in with emotion just like you know just like you know just like your you know physical health can be affected by your mental health and vice versa I mean your voice can tap into your motion your emotion can tap into your voice absolutely absolutely a lot of it yes okay just a second I want to make sure absolutely and yeah it's um so many people like there's a lot there's a lot that gets stored like I'll have this experience with the in session with people with my clients and um a lot of times things will kind of show up here so when you talk about like getting choked up in ukprays like that's a lot of times there's a motion that's wanting to come out but then we also have a part of us that's kind of the saying no it's not socially appropriate or no this was not okay in my family I learned to kind of push these things down lots there's just lots going on here and so absolutely when things don't get to move through they get they can get stuck and it can get sometimes like stuck physically in our body and it just shows up in other ways but yeah it's I think it's it's such a important way to release so not only is in an artistic expression but I think it's just a way of like vocalizing like you think it's screaming or yelling or something's happening on a physiological and emotional level where can people find your music you can find my music on Spotify Apple YouTube and iviel.com yes and iviel.com what happens if you don't put the www in front of it that's a good question I think we're in the day and age this is 2023 yeah it's not if it was 1995 then yeah yeah okay you can find it at htp backs last back last colon ww.aviel.angelfire.com yes i'm older than you inside the other stuff and my voice will pierce the skies oh i guess every and whoo boo boo day is is is really um i feel like i have like a short little handle for all these boo days my me too song that is the song that i wrote um during the cabna hearing um and back in i guess was that 2018 i think and just walking through with a lot of clients um specifically specifically clients that identified as female like a lot of them it was a really it was really challenging and and tough experience for for a lot of folks and obviously the me too movement kind of being around that time and then kind of walking through my own trauma and my own experience just living in the world we live in as a woman and just the misogyny and kind of my own my own me to experiences and populations and all of that like that song that song kind of was brewing from from all of that and and essentially it was also kind of mixed with this idea of not being able to or being okay for me to express anger specifically and and there's a story behind why blue j so blue j's my mom was not a big blue j fan and like they were the bully birds and she loved birds and and it was all about cardinals and even the way that we had our our bird feeder set up in minnesota was that the poor blue j's would get on and the thing would sink you know this this little the beers that you have to if a squirrel gets on there's protected but the blue j's were like just happy enough that the cardinals could get on a little chickadees and their birds and then the poor blue j's i'd always feel so badly for them but my mom would just convince me because they would sink as these beautiful blue j's would hop on to the beater but she would just explain like they're the bully their bullies and and they do you know they can be a little bit territorial and they they have that that name for a reason kind of the bullies of the song birds but they're also really smart smart birds intelligent protective of their young they can actually mimic hot calls in order to protect their their little families and and i also think it's really cool that the male blue j and the female blue j are both bright beautiful blue whereas all these other in nature so many birds you think of like the cardinals beautiful bright red male cardinal and then the brown female and the blue j's both are beautiful just regal blues and they look so pretty against the whites now i remember that minnesota and so this is kind of a reclamation of the of um let me let me back up so so i had this in my boomerang excuse me had this in my mind and just kept thinking like okay blue j for some reason just keeps coming up and as i'm thinking about me too and writing the song and and then had this realization of like some of what i was experiencing with with my mom not liking the blue j and i love my door and i'm saying nothing against my mom you didn't feel like you had to choose between your mom and the blue j's it's just like it's a very minnesota nice thing like let's like the cardinals because they're pretty and they sing pretty and and the blue j is not such a great pretty call it's kind of like a more of a call it's not a it's not necessarily attractive sombre call but there was this moment of like oh there's something with this with the blue j and i um remember this burst of anger i don't remember what it was about necessarily but storming into my room and just screaming like nobody was home and just screaming at the top of my lungs which is just not something i would normally do um and had learned again to swelch and push down and suppress anger because it wasn't okay for all sorts of reasons and just like i went into my room screamed lots of cuss words and then just kind of collapsed in tears and the window was open it was it was the fall whenever the song um and heard like it's just this host of blue j's calling outside and just had this is where it all kind of came to be it was this moment of oh like i'm reclaiming like there's something really beautiful about the blue j and there's something for me to learn from this beautiful bird that's misunderstood in this way and felt like it was permission for me to even the screaming was not pretty there's nothing pretty about it or sombre like that's what i was historically kind of just known for was being nice being like having a pretty voice um being a kind person and none of those are necessarily inherently bad things but not at the expense of being able to show these other parts of myself so blue j is really about me being able to to just show up in my fullness including the blue j aspects and it's also it feels kind of like it's my social justice song too because i think it started off as a me too song but i really think it's just transferable to any way that we're showing up and using our voice in the world and using our voice to speak out for um for those that are more marginalized and um so yeah that's blue j. That's interesting it's kind of like a um um not answer um parallel song to the song Blackbird by the Beatles which is also a social justice song. Yes yeah beautiful comparison i've never made that yeah yeah i love that and i've loved that song that's just um one of my favorite Beatles songs and i will always remember Sarah McLachlan's version of that too i kind of grew up when she came out with that um her lovely cover of that and she was one of those influential artists for me as well growing up in high school.
Have you ever heard her cover of uh i think it's called song on a witcher's night something like that it's here i can't think of the guy's name who did it he's famous but uh that's a great song yeah it's her cover of that song yeah i think it's her song song from a winter's night or song on a winter's night or something like that. I just have to send me all these. Right right i think it's her and then there's a lot of beautiful armies i think the indigo girls maybe we're doing the harmies i might be right about that don't quote me i'm cut this out anyway anything i'm recommending yeah okay as a psychologist uh i was gonna be a psychologist but i'm actually an LCSW oh okay i'm lower you know lower lady counselor lc st lady counselor severe i know licensed certified social worker light right licensed clinical clinical okay um so some start over uh as a counselor i'm gonna ask you a couple things you tell me what their signs of and this is not official so you can you give me just your real opinion you have to do like arms your diagnoses right right um so i have a thing where i don't like to wear the clothes into a store that i bought them from um so i'll go if i'm wearing like old navy i will not shop at old navy it doesn't matter what kind of sale they have in the window i'm not gonna go on old navy wearing old navy clothes is that anything i don't think that's diagnosable but that's very interesting okay my brother my older brother doesn't just like to pull he doesn't like to pull through and he doesn't like to buy back into parking space it was just fine but it really upsets him to see other people do it is that is that anything wait he he will back into a parking space no he will not oh don't even right that's offensive that you would even suggest it to him he will not back into a parking space or pull through a parking space and and that's fine if that's his own personal presence but if he sees other people do it it really upsets him so he can't do it if no one else can right right yeah and if you're in the car if you're driving he will get upset about that yeah i mean my my first gut instinct is just to act like get curious with him like what is that about that there isn't a specific diagnosis of words but i was curious like what's going on for you buddy what happens that's like you know that sounds like he's not like i'm saying like buddy but hauls that's my what's going on with you partner hey chief there he is he's all my year old yeah yeah i'm curious what what happens to him what is what is his experience when that happens and he watches someone else cool through a lot of that there's there's something yeah all right that's all the diagnosis i had three i was going to think of some more but i didn't want to put too much family laundry out there you know yeah okay big thanks again to ivl for being on the podcast don't forget to find her music at ivl.com also check the show notes for links to her music and her upcoming show i'd like to pre apologize to my brother rinney if telling everybody his secret anger at pull through parking if that causes him any trouble in life i apologize for that he's a multi multi-year teacher of the year so you know he's gonna be okay one more time don't forget to subscribe to the podcast w and c original music uh subscribe in really in whatever way that you feel comfortable i want you to feel comfortable in the way that you subscribe to the podcast as long as you subscribe to the podcast if you don't subscribe to the podcast i want you to be very uncomfortable just just how i am very vindictive the closing song this week comes from counter which is a western north carolina band so uh not outside the area like usual for closing songs but that's just how much i like this song i mean exception because that's just how i do counter is uh kind of a heavy metal pop-punk uh standard rock band not standard exceptional rock band from western north carolina you can find them online at counter.rocks and they have a new song called the darkness out now and you're gonna hear it right now here is counter have a good week unc original music