Just More love
a new song...out now
This is a song I couldn’t have written 5 years ago. I would have maybe felt too self-conscious, wondered if the song was maybe too cheesy. Just more love? That seems too simple, too cliche. Love songs back then for me were about the addictive dysfunctional push pull of unhealthy romance, infatuation, fantasy, seeking adventures, obsessing on the past. I was consumed with my own experiences, my worry over whether or not I would get to achieve, do, be everything I wanted to be in life. When my mother said things to me like, “When it comes down to it, life is about relationships.” I heard her but I also brushed it off.
** Just More Love Listen here **
In comparison to now, love as I knew it, was still on the surface. Life hadn’t yet cracked me open, allowing for space and canyons to fill with a deeper meaning.
Five years ago, I hadn’t yet learned what it was to truly face your demons. I hadn’t experienced shining a light on your own shadow with a witness as well who wasn’t afraid to see you in your entirety and still love you. I hadn’t yet made the decision to feel the necessary discomfort in sitting with myself and choosing to live aligned with my integrity rather than driven by my cravings.
Five years ago, I hadn’t yet experienced what it is to sacrifice parts of myself, my life, feel my body expand and grow a human inside of me. I hadn’t yet experienced the body stretching and shattering, experience of childbirth, the depths of love, patience, rage, fear, isolation, ecstasy, exhaustion, joy and pain of then raising that child.
Five years ago, I hadn’t yet experienced what it was to watch my mom come back from the dead, for months sitting at her side, scanning her every feature, counting her breaths, praying in helpless desperation that she would somehow come back to us whole, as the mother I knew and still needed. I hadn’t yet experienced what it was to accept the endless loss I would feel, that that idea of her being ‘whole,’ the same as her former self, would never exist again, no matter how much she healed and recovered.
Five years ago I hadn’t watched loved ones rebuild their own lives, choosing recovery, healing, growth and fighting addiction day in and day out. I hadn’t yet supported friends through their own devastating losses of their parents, siblings, spouses and even children.
Five years ago, I hadn’t yet seen or felt the impact of world events up close, they were still just stories through my screen. I hadn’t yet had earnest yet challenging conversations with people I’ve known and loved to discover how painfully different we view certain aspects of life, love, war, equality, rights, freedom.
When I sat down to write this song with my friend Zach, I was holding all of this experience and knowledge. I was thinking of the further depths I have yet to know in life. The heartbreak, disappointments, grief and unbearable loss that are for sure in my future as well as the incredibly exciting highs, adventures, joy, laughter and achievements. In writing this song I was contemplating if I wanted to look forward to them bracing in fear or in embracing love.
This week, as I’ve been thinking about releasing this song, to be honest I’ve been a bit nervous. I’ve also been consumed with the news and the deepening divides in our country and the world. It’s worried me how I’ve felt my fear and distrust increase, my faith in humanity diminish. I started listening to a Tara Brach talk while driving to pick up my daughter from school and she said something that caught me:
“If we look back through human history, evolutionary scientists believe that stressors, survival dangers are what increase the sophistication of our language and communication, our capacity to reason, and the growth of pro-social capacities like compassion, like empathy, like collaboration. It was huge stressors, survival dangers that did it.
And the trajectory of our human evolution is towards wider and wider domains of belonging beyond kin and tribe, beyond particular community, to realizing a belonging to life. Stress can grow us. Like the winds causing trees to grow heartwood, interweaving roots, we can grow.
Thich Nhat Hanh captures it so beautifully with that simple phrase, ‘no mud, no lotus.’”
I couldn’t help but think of all the stressors and challenges I’ve experienced in my own life, my own home, the micro and the macro even within my small world from grave illness and devastating loss to sleep deprivation and toddler tantrums. And then zooming out to the micro and the macro surrounding me: our community, our city, our state, our country, our world. Everywhere, I see reminders of a “belonging to life” and am attaching my hope to the belief that “stress can grow us.”
At a time when it especially feels like normalizing hate, cruel language and accepting war and violence as a necessary part of life, choosing to put your faith and foundation in love feels like an almost radical act or at the very least, a naive, unrealistic one.
But that’s what this song is about….making the radical, maybe naive choice, again and again.
And accepting, ‘no mud, no lotus.’
Just More Love Written by Michaela Anne and Zach Berkman
Slept through the night, I’m still tired Feel a body in my body Stretched inside, stretch my mind Picturing another life
Tie my shoes, read the news Some days i wish i hadn’t I wonder how we manage To make the most of what we have
In this wild cruel world Out of the dark, against the odds, I’ll bring you home Why would we open up the door Make another bed, set another place. Another heart to know, to grow to love and let go
It’s just more love
Called a friend on the phone Just to clear the air between us. We don’t see eye to eye But I still claim them as my own How did we come to be so far from where we started How did we come to tell the story Like there’s just one way it goes?
In this wild cruel world Out of the dark, against the odds, I’ll bring you home Why would we open up the door Make another bed, set another place. Another heart to know, to grow to love and let go
It’s just more love
I’m really excited that the recording of this new song came out yesterday on all streaming platforms. This is the first new original song I've released in a couple of years and the first recording of mine, in 10 years, that I will release as the owner of the master recording as well as the full owner of the publishing. I share this because this is a new era of the way I'm approaching my music career and there are pros and cons to this.
I, for one, am excited to finally own my own work. It matters to me. But it also means, I don’t have a machine, however small it may be, working behind the scenes to fund and promote my music. I don’t have a radio promoter sending it to every station requesting support and airplay, I don’t have a publicist e-blasting a press release to a list of journalists. And for right now, that feels okay to me. That’s what I am choosing.
But I do have you all. Here’s where you come in: If you feel comfortable, I’d love for you to listen to this song on whatever streaming platform you prefer, as much as possible. You can turn the volume down if you get sick of it, just keep it on! For better or worse, streaming is still important. As much as we wish these platforms paid artists and songwriters more equitably, if I’m trying to continue in a music career, those numbers still matter and growing them helps.
Second, please share it! Text the song link to your friends, post about it on Instagram, FB, Tik Tok, anywhere and tag me! I'd love to hear how the song resonates with you, especially at this particular time in life.
** Just More Love Listen here **
Any help sharing is deeply appreciated.
As always, thank you thank you!