In 2021 I started a site called YouHaveAFuture.org. It follows the album Hurt from the A Year of Music project. That album stood out as the magnum opus of the entire project, and a marked the biggest shift in my music since I started over 25 years ago.
The goal of the site is to act as a helpful resource for those who, like I once was, have found themselves trapped in depression, self-hatred, and self-destructive thoughts.
A year after launching the site, I released an 8 song album named after it. The collection features music that seeks to encourage those who are hurting and to show that they are not alone.
By the way, aside from Take Your Power Back, every track on this album was written and recorded the day the album was released.
Experiences change us, shaping who we are in ways our former self may not recognize. The song Mirror is a reflection of that. Yes, the pun was intended.
Throughout our life, we go through a lot. Some people have rougher experiences than others. That’s just how life is, and as much as we may want it to be fair, it never will be. So, we have to work with what we have and fight to get above the trauma that shapes us.
The person we are is born from everything that we’ve been through. The heartache, the stress, the happy times and the bad. When we look at ourselves, what we see in the mirror is a battle worn life tested person who not only went thorugh a lot of shit, but is still standing. As the song says:
so don’t be afraid of the scars you’ve taken
…they are proof you will make it
Before the Internet was shoved up everyone’s ass, people were happier. We weren’t hyper obsessed with needing to share every aspect of our lives with the planet, and we weren’t constantly trying to keep up with whatever was cool. We didn’t have people around the globe bullying us, and we were going completely insane from manipulation.
The youth of today don’t know that world. They only know the one where they are connected to everyone and everything going on. They face stresses that we never did 30 years ago. They have more depression, anxiety, and a suicide rate that has gone through the roof.
Disconnecting from the web brings you back to your life. It turns off the terrible things that have been negatively affecting you, hurting you, and eating away at your spirit.
For a while, I found myself becoming an angry, stressed out mess. I was spending a lot of time on social media, and it was wrecking me. And for me, being a person who came from a world before the Internet, I recognized where the problem was coming from. I quit going to these sites and after a couple of weeks, I could see the change in myself. It was like night and day. No more bullshit, no more stress from people trying to make me angry. I was able to reconnect with life again and be happier.
And that’s the point of this song. Disconnect and Be Happy.
In 2020, I released what I personally regard as the best song I’ve ever written. It’s one of the only songs I’ve written that was for someone else, and one that I wish I had written before October of 2012.
Take Your Power Back is everything I wish I could have said to her, and if time travel was possible, it’s what I give her. Maybe things would have changed. I can only believe they would.
The reason I re-recorded the song was because the original had some issues, including reverb that messed with the vocals. I couldn’t fix it, so I decided to record the song again. I included it on this album to give it more exposure and try to help the next Amanda. I believe she would have wanted it that way.