Gratitude - Blue Strawberry, 7/30/25

Words fail to express my gratitude for this past Wednesday night. Nonetheless, I feel I need to try and do just that. I have smiled, happy cried, and been in disbelief since Wednesday, and I have so many people and reasons to be grateful.

First, to my friends Eric and Dusty - thank you for lending your skills as musicians to these songs. Every measure of those parts was made better by having you all play on them. You are two of the greatest friends I’ve ever known, and it was so moving to bring these songs to life with you. Secondly, thank you to my partner, friends, and family that put up with this show being my focus from May through July. You all put up with me pouring hours into arranging music, tweaking lyrics, and practicing hours and hours on these songs.

Thanks to the Blue Strawberry for allowing us to perform in such a beautiful space, and being such great people to work with for the night. Thanks to Silas Tockey for giving me some space at various Central IL open mics to perform and prepare for this show. Thanks to Cameron Nollman for helping me clean up the visual aspect of the parts so I could arrange 10 songs in 4 weeks, putting up with countless hours of phone calls for reassurance, and for assuring me I could arrange the songs for a trio so quickly.

Last but certainly not least, thanks to anyone who came to the show, or wished me well in preparing it. I have long felt some sort of imposter syndrome surrounding my music, and it is so nice to feel that relationship healed. Some of these songs remained unheard for 10 years, some of them just two months. Despite that, this was 27 years of work coming to fruition, and these songs were able to reach some of you. In my song “Jukebox” (second slide) I wrote “no one would listen to words that I write”. Thank you for proving me wrong. My younger self would be so proud.  

If you came to the show, supported this, or even read this far - I love you. Thank you, and I’ll see you next time!

(Also, stream Songs About Switzerland on Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon, YouTube, Etc!)