Track By Tracks: If Not For Me - Everything You Wanted (2024)

1. Feel Me Now:

I wrote Feel Me Now about a handful of toxic relationships I had to navigate through in my early adulthood. I was going through a major transitional period in my life where I desperately needed to figure out who I was, and more importantly, who I didn’t want to be. Feel Me Now expresses the desperation and heartache of feeling confined in a broken relationship that you know is only hurting both of you. We make mistakes, we cling to a love that is fleeting, and we hurt each other in ways we can never take back. Not from a place of malice, but from a place of fear and unresolved trauma, and a longing for something we know we can’t have.

2. Blameless:

I wrote Blameless about the people in our lives who refuse to take accountability for their actions. Whether it’s friends, family, romantic partners, or even ourselves from time to time, this lack of self-reflection and unwillingness to take a look in the mirror causes serious strain on our interpersonal relationships. Blameless specifically is written in the context of a relationship where one partner is subjected to dealing with the fallout of this behavior and pushed beyond their breaking point.

3. No Thanks To You:

No Thanks To You is all about moving on from somebody who’s been manipulating or using you. It’s another very personal song to me because I know exactly how hollow it can feel to realize something you invested so much of yourself into wasn’t even real. But there’s something so freeing and empowering in being able to recognize your worth and move forward. These wounds are bound to open from time to time, but progress isn’t a linear thing, and healing takes time.

4. Demons:

Demons is an exploration of the darker corners of your mind. When the things we don’t talk about create a space to fester and take us to places we never wanted to be. Oftentimes when we fall into these cycles, we can feel ourselves slipping but feel powerless to stop it. Demons highlight the self-aware struggle of being a prisoner of your own will.

5. I Don’t Wanna Be Here:

I wrote I Don’t Wanna Be Here about feeling trapped in a one-sided relationship where you feel overlooked, used, and taken for granted. It’s so draining to be giving your all to somebody while getting nothing meaningful in return. The tagline “I don’t wanna be here” was the very first lyric written for the song, and I loved the attitude and desperation in it so much that I wanted to build the song completely around that vibe. I feel like "I Don't Wanna Be Here” is an extremely relatable song for anyone who feels unheard and unseen in their relationships.

6. Everything You Wanted:

I wrote Everything You Wanted for anyone who’s ever felt like they’ve been used, manipulated, or betrayed in their interpersonal relationships. The song highlights the frustration and confusion of being strung along for somebody else’s gain, but also the relief of being set free when all the lies finally come crashing down. I absolutely love the subtle sarcastic tone of the title and the attitude it implies. I just wanted the listener to be able to relate to that vindicating weight being lifted when you can see that you’ve been right all along and can finally begin to move on.”

7. Lost Cause:

I wrote Lost Cause all about drug addiction. It’s something I’ve fortunately never had to experience personally, but addiction is something I’ve grown up with pretty consistently around my friends and family. I wanted to express the desperation addicts feel when they know that they’re in far too deep but can’t do anything about it. I’ve watched addiction rip apart families and relationships with those involved fully knowing the turmoil they’re inflicting on themselves and everyone around them, and there’s no heartbreak quite like that. I hope anyone struggling that listens to Lost Cause can get something meaningful out of it, and know that they’re not alone on their journey to recovery.

8. The Weight:

I wrote The Weight about the times in our lives when everything we’re going through just feels too heavy to carry. There have been so many times in my life when I felt like I couldn’t keep going the way I was and that everything was just crashing down around me. The Weight expresses those low lows and is a very personal song to me, so I hope anyone dealing with similar situations can get something positive out of it.

9. Alone:

Alone is the culmination of a last-ditch effort to reconcile a relationship that you know is already over. I wanted to write a relatable story about love and loss, ending in heartbreak and fear of abandonment. I think it’s a very powerful and familiar feeling to grow so attached to someone that you empty yourself into them completely to the point where you believe that you can’t survive without them, and I really wanted to capture that desperation in the tone and lyrics. Alone is a very personal song to me, and I hope our fans can really get something meaningful out of it.

10. Tragedy:

Tragedy is a little bit of an outlier to the record, but it’s important to me to be able to write about things I don’t talk about very often every now and again. When I do this, I often try to take inspiration from things happening around me. I wrote Tragedy about the state of the world my generation is inheriting. I think a lot of us have kind of accepted the fact that most of us are never going to retire. We’re never going to own a house, or be able to afford the kind of lives our parents and grandparents had. We’re constantly experiencing record high and low temperatures, mass shooting events, political discourse, economic collapses, systemic and prejudicial violence, etc. We’re so tired of living through tragic historical events and feeling like our leaders don’t care to make the changes necessary for a sustainable future. We’re set up simply to survive instead of thrive, and much of that feels like a failure by design. The tagline “We were born into tragedy” perfectly sums up what I wrote this song about.