Too Late

ORIGIN STORY

That’s when I moved to Nashville and wrote my heart out.

I had a writing session with a songwriter / producer, Bobby Campbell. I had never met him. I showed up and we started talking about the feeling after a breakup. I remember that day I was feeling pretty good. I wasn’t as depressed as I had been.

I started to imagine a character who misses someone and calls her at night and invites her over. I thought that the guy would call the girl. She would pick up and be singing

12am
phone call
on the other end
a boy alone

Bobby and I kept playing with the story and the song came so fast. I heard this melody that kind of surprised me in the chorus. “even though, we both know…” and the melody going up on though and know. It felt weird and cool. Bobby loved it and started working on the track. I was going to pitch this song to a pop singer. I didn’t know who, but I thought it could be big. We finished the demo and I sent it to my publisher.

I got this response back…

I decided to do a better demo, so I took it to Gabe and Gideon and when they heard the song they were convinced that I should sing it and release it solo. I wasn’t ready, but I did take notice and I think the dream was planted then. Here’s the demo we came up with.

I played it for Ian and he LOVED it. We tried to turn it into a duet between me a Liz to see if it would work for Delta Rae.

But it didn’t work and that convinced me that this song was mine. The original demo with Gabe and Gideon became the foundation for the version that I eventually released on the album. But first I explored a few other options which you can hear below. One with Gabe and Gideon in a different key, and one with Alex Wong in yet ANOTHER key and with a different feel.

This process was EXHAUSTING. But I found my key on the Too Late Tour. G Minor. It’s where my voice wanted to go originally. I’m so glad I found it. Sometimes you really do need to get lost in order to come back to where you started and own it.

This is an important song for me. I thought I was writing it for someone else, but really I was just processing grief in another way. It was always my story, I just wasn’t ready to claim it.