Some songs have a curious way of finding their audience, often taking a journey quite different from the one their creator originally imagined. For South African singer-songwriter Rob Rodell, “Could This Be Love” began as an exploration of faith, frustration and the search for personal meaning, before an unexpected musical transformation turned it into a gold-selling House hit.
Bringing together Rodell’s distinctive vocal style and the production talents of Cuebur, the track has travelled well beyond its original intentions, becoming a soundtrack to countless personal memories, relationships and moments on the dancefloor. Its story is as interesting as the song itself, offering a glimpse into the unpredictable nature of songwriting and the wonderful things that can happen when listeners make a piece of music their own.
Rodell is an artist with an unusually broad musical vocabulary. Classically trained, with a background spanning contemporary songwriting, a cappella performance and electronic music, he has spent more than two decades exploring different ways of bringing his voice and ideas to an audience. His musical journey has included a South African Music Award nomination, international performances and a gold-certified single, but “Could This Be Love” remains a particularly interesting chapter in that story.
The original inspiration was far removed from the familiar territory of romantic songwriting. Rodell recalls writing the song during a period when he felt his life was in disarray, describing his mind as a battlefield and his body as the war. His religious beliefs at the time brought an additional dimension to those feelings, as he wrestled with the apparent contradiction between faith, human imperfection and the desire to find some sense of peace. The song became a way of working through those emotions, with its central question directed towards a higher power rather than a romantic interest.
Yet there is something wonderfully open ended about the lyrics. Confusion, loneliness, frustration and the feeling of being taken for a fool are emotions that can belong to almost any complicated relationship. Rodell recognises that listeners have interpreted the song through their own experiences of infatuation and heartbreak, and is genuinely delighted that they have made it their own.
Originally conceived as a slower adult contemporary song, “Could This Be Love” underwent a complete change of character after Rodell met producer Cuebur while working at Soul Candi, where he was involved in teaching music business. Cuebur, then a young producer making his mark in House music, asked whether Rodell had any vocal recordings he could experiment with. The resulting remixes provided three different interpretations, with one eventually catching the attention of DJ Shimza and finding its way onto radio.
The House version gives the song a different kind of momentum, taking Rodell’s expressive vocal and placing it within a more immediate electronic setting. It is an effective combination, allowing the emotional uncertainty of the original to sit alongside the infectious qualities of dance music.
Rodell has spoken about reading comments from listeners who associate the track with university days, old relationships, friendships and important moments in their lives. For an artist, there can be few more satisfying experiences than discovering that something created in private has become part of somebody else’s personal history.
That connection also brings us back to Rodell’s interest in reception theory, which explores how the meaning intended by the creator can differ from the meaning received by an audience. “Could This Be Love” provides an almost perfect illustration. The songwriter may have begun with questions about faith and his relationship with God, but listeners have found their own stories within the same words and melodies.
Rob Rodell’s “Could This Be Love” is an interesting reminder that music rarely remains where its creator first places it. Sometimes a song’s greatest achievement is not simply what it says, but what it comes to mean to everyone who hears it. From an intensely personal piece of songwriting to a gold selling House favourite, this is a track that has travelled a rather remarkable distance and it continues to find new meaning along the way.
Beneath the upbeat rhythm of her latest single, the New York singer-songwriter explores the difference between falling in love with someone and falling in love with the idea of them.
We all have a tendency to fill in the blanks when it comes to people we care about. We imagine how things might be, overlook the details that don’t quite fit and sometimes become so attached to the possibility of a relationship that we struggle to see what is actually in front of us. It is an interesting subject for a pop song, and one that New York-based singer-songwriter Zoey Madison takes on with considerable personality in her latest single “Picture Perfect”.
There is no slow, sorrowful introduction or attempt to turn romantic disappointment into an overly dramatic affair. “Picture Perfect” arrives with an infectious rhythmic energy, immediately establishing a pop sensibility that makes you want to turn up the volume. It is only as the song unfolds that the more complicated story begins to emerge.
The title itself gives us a clue. We tend to associate the phrase picture perfect with something desirable, something that has all the right ingredients and appears to have fallen neatly into place. But Madison is interested in the difference between appearances and reality. Her song is about the expectations we build around another person, and the rather uncomfortable moment when those expectations begin to crumble.
The most revealing moment arrives in the bridge, where she sings, “I was holding on to a world that was made up in my mind.” It is a great line because it turns the focus inward. This isn’t simply a song about someone failing to live up to expectations; it is also about recognising how much of the fantasy we may have created ourselves. That is a more interesting place to take a relationship song, and it gives Picture Perfect an emotional dimension that sits nicely beneath its bright musical exterior.
Madison’s vocals are another reason the track holds your attention. She possesses a four octave range and an extended whistle register, and she certainly knows how to use them. There are softer passages followed by bigger, more expansive moments where her voice takes centre stage. The bridge is particularly effective, giving her room to move through the different textures of her voice while keeping the song’s momentum intact.
Madison has spoken about enjoying the recording process so much that she could have continued adding harmonies and layers long after the song was finished. Listening to the finished track, that makes perfect sense. The additional vocals give the arrangement its own character, and there is a sense that she has enjoyed exploring just how much she can bring to the recording.
Produced by Matt Chiaravalle and co-written by Madison, Chiaravalle and Lauren Salvo, “Picture Perfect” follows the piano-led “Love Like You”, demonstrating that Madison is not interested in staying within one particular musical setting. Where that earlier release allowed her to explore a more expansive ballad arrangement, this single gives her a livelier backdrop and a different way of telling a story.
Her musical influences include Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland and Ariana Grande, and there are clear traces of that appreciation for expressive, technically ambitious vocal performances in her work. Yet Madison’s growing identity as a songwriter comes from the subjects she chooses to explore and the way she approaches them. She is interested in the messy, contradictory parts of relationships, the things we tell ourselves and the moments when we finally see a situation differently.
With three tracks from her debut EP, Electric, already receiving recognition in international songwriting competitions, Madison has been steadily building a catalogue that gives listeners different sides of her personality.
“Picture Perfect” is an enjoyable addition to that catalogue. It has the rhythmic appeal of a good pop single, vocals that give plenty of personality and a story that becomes more interesting the closer you listen.
Keep up with everything Zoey Madison on her Website
Blending cinematic indie-pop with candid songwriting, Julia Morgan turns the uncertainties of growing up into a thoughtful nine-track portrait of identity, ambition and finding your place in the world.
Some artists spend years trying to work out what they want to say. Julia Morgan has taken a rather interesting route, using her debut album to explore the questions that have been following her since childhood.
Released as a nine-track collection, The Architect is a record about identity, the expectations we place upon ourselves and the sometimes uncomfortable business of growing into the person we want to become. It is also an album with a rather lovely story behind its name.
Growing up, Morgan kept a copy of Julia Morgan Built a Castle, the children’s book by Celeste Davidson Mannis beside her bed. It told the story of the pioneering architect who became California’s first licensed female architect and went on to design more than 800 buildings, including the famous Hearst Castle. Sharing a name with such an extraordinary woman was always an interesting coincidence, but as Morgan grew older, her namesake’s story began to take on a different significance. The idea of designing and building something of your own became a way of thinking about life itself.
That idea sits at the heart of The Architect. Morgan is interested in the things that shape us: family, friendships, insecurity, ambition, loss and the expectations of those around us. She approaches these subjects with an openness that makes the record feel personal without becoming inaccessible.
Working alongside LA based songwriter and producer Stella Smyth, who has mentored Morgan for several years, she has created a collection that gives her writing plenty of room to develop. All nine songs were co-written and executive produced by the pair, with the arrangements bringing together contemporary pop production, atmospheric textures, strings and more intimate instrumental passages. There is a cinematic quality to much of the album, but the songs remain rooted in Morgan’s own experiences.
“Performing” is one of the clearest examples of what makes this project interesting. On the surface, it explores the familiar pressure of comparing yourself with other people and feeling that you must constantly prove your worth. But there is a more personal story behind it. Morgan previously gave up ballet after becoming self-conscious about her dancing alongside other young performers with more experience and technical ability. The experience stayed with her, eventually finding its way into a song about the different roles we adopt in order to feel accepted.
Social situations, friendships and everyday interactions can all become occasions where we feel obliged to be entertaining, confident or agreeable, even when our emotions tell a different story. Morgan explores that tension with an understanding of how easily we can lose sight of ourselves while trying to live up to other people’s expectations.
There are other moments where Morgan turns inward. “Before the Grave” is a particularly affecting piano led ballad, its gentle and almost conversational vocal delivery creating an intimate atmosphere. The song considers mortality, memory and the longing for a future that feels more hopeful. Rather than relying on grand gestures, it allows its emotions to emerge gradually with a haunting chorus that gives the subject matter a lingering quality.
“Fallen Leaves” takes a different route, exploring the complicated emotional connections between mothers and daughters and the ways in which experiences can be passed from one generation to another. Its ethereal folk qualities suit the subject beautifully while the writing shows an interest in understanding family relationships beyond their most obvious expressions. It is a thoughtful piece of songwriting that adds another layer to the album’s wider exploration of identity.
The title track brings everything back to the person who inspired the record in the first place. With its moody pop waltz and atmospheric arrangement, “The Architect” feels much like a conversation between two women separated by generations but connected by a name and an idea. Morgan looks at the remarkable achievements of her namesake while considering the possibilities ahead of her.
One of the more interesting aspects of Morgan’s music is the contrast between the emotions expressed in her songs and the other parts of her personality. She is also an actress and comedian, with an impressive background that includes Broadway’s Anastasia, HBO’s Divorce opposite Sarah Jessica Parker, and comedy projects alongside Colin Jost, Wanda Sykes, Neil Patrick Harris and Rachel Dratch. Her comedic videos have attracted more than a million views, and she regularly performs stand-up, including hosting a charity fundraiser at New York’s Comic Strip Live.
It would be easy to assume that someone with such an outgoing performing background would approach music in much the same way. Instead, The Architect reveals a more introspective side, one that is willing to explore feelings that are not always easy to discuss. Morgan understands that humour and sadness are not mutually exclusive and that the person people see in public is rarely the complete picture.
There are familiar influences in the music, with shades of Lana Del Rey, Billie Eilish and Gracie Abrams appearing in its more atmospheric and confessional moments, but Morgan’s own experiences give the material its identity.
It is also worth recognising how much of this album has grown out of a creative relationship that began when Morgan was just eleven. During the pandemic, she picked up a ukulele and started writing songs with the few chords she knew. Her parents subsequently introduced her to Smyth, then a young songwriter studying music at NYU. What began as mentorship developed into a longstanding collaboration, eventually taking the pair to Los Angeles to record the material that would become The Architect.
That history is present throughout the album, which feels like the work of an artist who has been given the time and encouragement to discover her own voice. It is not trying to offer a definitive account of who Julia Morgan is. Instead, it captures a young woman asking questions, revisiting old insecurities and looking towards the future with a growing sense of confidence.
For a debut, it is both ambitious and revealing. More importantly, it gives us a sense of an artist with plenty left to say. Julia Morgan may have started out with a book about a woman who built castles, but with The Architect, she has begun constructing something entirely her own.
About Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan is a New York based singer-songwriter, actress and comedian whose creative career spans music, Broadway, television and stand-up. Her debut album, The Architect, is a nine-track collection of cinematic indie-pop exploring identity, vulnerability, family relationships and self-discovery.
Co-written and executive produced with longtime mentor and LA-based producer Stella Smyth, the album takes its inspiration from Julia’s namesake, the pioneering architect who designed Hearst Castle and became California’s first licensed female architect.
Julia began writing songs at eleven during the pandemic, developing her musical voice through a creative partnership with Smyth. Alongside her music, she has built an impressive acting career, appearing as the Little Anastasia understudy in Broadway’s Anastasia and guest-starring opposite Sarah Jessica Parker in HBO’s Divorce. Her comedy work includes Audible’s Trust Fall, featuring Colin Jost, Wanda Sykes, Neil Patrick Harris and Rachel Dratch, as well as The Best Man’s Ghost Writer with Glen Powell. A working stand-up comedian, Julia also organises and hosts an annual fundraiser for New York City food charities at Comic Strip Live. Across her different creative pursuits, she brings humour, curiosity and emotional honesty to her work, with The Architect marking an exciting new chapter in her career.
There is a lot to be said for knowing when to slow down. Not everything needs to be a grand statement, a dramatic confession or an attempt to change the world. Sometimes a good song is simply about enjoying a quiet moment, appreciating what is around you and remembering that there is more to life than the daily rush.
That is what Poppy Griffin explores on her debut single, “Peace,” and she approaches it with a musical maturity that makes this a rather promising introduction.
Originally from South Freeport, Maine, Griffin is currently completing her senior year at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. It was there, during a songwriting class, that the idea for “Peace” first took shape. Given the task of writing a poem about a feeling without actually naming it, she chose peace. A second exercise asked students to write a song beginning with the word ‘and’, and the two ideas soon came together. What started as a classroom assignment became a song that would eventually lead her into a Nashville recording studio.
There is an appealing simplicity to the finished recording. Built around folk-inspired songwriting, gentle melodic turns and Beatles-esque chord changes, “Peace” has an easy warmth that makes it feel instantly approachable. Griffin isn’t chasing trends or trying to squeeze herself into a particular musical category. Instead, she allows the song to develop naturally, bringing together elements of folk, country and pop, with just enough jazz influence to give the arrangement its own character.
Her voice is another considerable attraction. Warm and rounded, it has a natural quality that suits the material particularly well. There are shades of Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones in the musical sensibility, although Griffin is clearly still developing her own identity as a songwriter and performer. The important thing is that she doesn’t sound as though she is desperately trying to imitate anyone.
Lyrically, Griffin finds inspiration in the sort of everyday observations that many of us might overlook. The image of branches waving towards the sun, inspired by watching the breeze move through the trees, is a lovely example. Nature becomes a source of companionship, the world feels a little less hurried, and suddenly the ordinary business of being alive seems rather wonderful.
What I particularly like about “Peace” is that Griffin doesn’t attempt to impose her own definition of the word on the listener. For her, it might be a morning coffee before work or an afternoon spent reading on the beach. For somebody else, it could be something entirely different. That is a nice quality in a songwriter, particularly one making her first steps into the recording world.
The story behind the recording is an interesting one, too. Griffin moved across the country to attend Idyllwild, initially struggling with homesickness and the uncertainty that comes with finding yourself in an unfamiliar environment. It was through songwriting that she began to discover her confidence. A school wide performance competition saw her accompanying herself on guitar in public for the first time, performing Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” and earning third place. Her prize was a recording session with visiting Nashville producer Grady James, which became the starting point for “Peace”.
The experience clearly had a lasting effect. Griffin has spoken about previously questioning whether her songwriting ideas were good enough, but this was one of the first songs that made her genuinely excited about writing. Her family subsequently surprised her with further recording sessions at Studio45b in Nashville, working with James, Danielle Todd and Claire Kelly. Six additional songs emerged from those sessions, including “East Of Me”, “Martha” and “Story”, suggesting that there is already plenty more to come.
For a debut single, “Peace” is a charming introduction to an artist who seems to understand that good songwriting isn’t necessarily about making the biggest noise. It is about finding the right words, trusting a melody and knowing when to leave things alone. Griffin has a natural feel for all three, and while she is still at the beginning of her musical journey, there is enough here to make you curious about where she goes next.
With further singles, live performances and a debut album all on the horizon, Poppy Griffin has plenty of opportunities ahead of her. In the meantime, “Peace” is a lovely place to start. Put the kettle on, find a comfortable chair and give it a listen. We could probably all use a little more of that.
About Poppy Griffin
Poppy Griffin is a singer-songwriter from South Freeport, Maine, currently completing her senior year at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California. Blending folk, jazz, pop and country, she brings a warm, melodic approach to songwriting, taking her inspiration from nature, everyday experiences and personal stories.
Influenced by artists including Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones, Kacey Musgraves, Olivia Dean and Fleetwood Mac, Griffin is developing a sound that combines thoughtful lyrics with an instinctive feel for melody.
Her journey as a songwriter began to take shape at Idyllwild, where she discovered the confidence to move beyond musical influences and develop her own creative identity.
Following a school performance competition, she recorded her debut single, “Peace,” with Nashville producer Grady James. Further recording sessions at Studio45b in Nashville, working alongside established songwriters and producers, resulted in six additional songs. With more singles planned, live performances on the horizon and ambitions to write her debut album, Griffin is an emerging artist with plenty more stories to tell.
Hamilton, Ontario singer-songwriter and guitarist Matty Simpson shares “Explode,” a restless, emotionally charged single that blends the raw energy of grunge and punk with the introspective storytelling of Americana and roots rock. Caught between exhilaration and uncertainty, the track explores the overwhelming nature of love and the fear of surrendering control.
Inspired by a period of listening to both heavier rock bands and introspective singer-songwriters, “Explode” emerged from Simpson’s desire to bridge those musical worlds. The title comes from the lyric, “you made my heart explode,” capturing feelings so powerful that they become both beautiful and destabilizing.
“It was an attempt to write a love song and be more positive during a phase where I was writing mostly about sadness and heartbreak,” Simpson explains. “It ended up being about someone who is so deeply in love, that it is debilitating and even self-destructive. Love can be that way, too. Love is complex and so is writing about it.”
That emotional push and pull shapes the song’s arrangement. Its heavier, grunge-inspired passages contrast with quieter moments that leave room for reflection. One of Simpson’s favourite lyrics, “Hey, don’t talk so loud, I’m trying to hear the softest sound,” arrives after a loud chorus crescendo, creating a shift that emerged naturally during the songwriting process.
“I think it has a great dynamic effect that was never planned and was discovered after the song was in existence,” he shares.
Despite its heavier influences, “Explode” follows Simpson’s commitment to keeping the songwriting at the forefront. Inspired by the directness of artists like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Nirvana, he favours arrangements that deliver emotional impact without unnecessary embellishment.
“The song has to come first and be great on its own,” Simpson explains.
“Explode” appears on his upcoming full-length album, Sky Breaks at Dawn, which explores healing, love, perseverance, and the passage of time. Across the record, he considers the tension between uncertainty and acceptance, recognizing that time can offer both renewal and decline. Within that larger narrative, “Explode” reflects the importance of embracing life’s experiences, even when their outcomes remain unknown.
Halifax artist and producer Katharine Fountain introduces her solo project with “When Good Girls Go Bad,” a dark, cinematic electronic pop single exploring the loss of innocence and identity in the aftermath of trauma. The track marks the first release from her forthcoming Dark Days EP, a deeply personal collection written while navigating grief, destructive coping mechanisms, and the search for oneself following profound loss. Pairing shadowy, visceral beats with lush, atmospheric production, the single captures the emotional weight of shame and the struggle to recognize oneself after life has been irrevocably altered.
Written during a period when Fountain felt increasingly disconnected from herself, “When Good Girls Go Bad” emerged from the realization that the coping mechanisms she had turned to were only deepening her pain. Overwhelmed by shame and the weight of unspoken experiences, she began questioning how she had strayed so far from the person she once knew.
“I no longer recognized the face I saw in the mirror and asked myself where I went wrong,” Fountain explains, pointing to the question at the heart of the chorus: I’d like to know where they go when good girls go bad.
Written and produced by Fountain herself, the final recording retains much of the original demo she created several years earlier, combining its foundational synths and programmed drums with organic instrumentation. A Fazioli grand piano, performed by Dean Holbrough, and powerful live drums from Sekou Lumumba add depth and intensity to the electronic arrangement.
Drawn to the richness of blending analogue and electronic sounds, Fountain carefully builds tension through melody and arrangement, allowing the instrumentation to mirror the vulnerability and drama of the lyrics. Her vocals shift between ethereal fragility and commanding power, making the production an essential part of the song’s emotional storytelling.
Written in the years following the death of her only sibling to suicide, Dark Days explores depression, abusive relationships, and the search for comfort in harmful places. The EP became a way for Fountain to process experiences she had struggled to articulate, transforming a period of profound emotional upheaval into an intimate musical narrative.
Having found comfort in music during some of her loneliest moments, Fountain hopes her own work can offer that same sense of understanding to others. “I hope that someone will listen to my music and feel seen.”
Toronto-based duo MOONRIIVR return with “Lady Of The Lake,” a moody, indie single that blends slow-motion surf rock with mournful saxophones and haunting guitar textures. Exploring emotional stagnation and moving forward, the track is the latest offering from their forthcoming sophomore album, expected in early 2027.
The song began with a musical foundation written by Champagne James Robertson, which immediately resonated with bandmate Gavin Gardiner. As Gardiner developed the melodies and lyrics, he drew from a period of feeling emotionally stuck, turning the song into a personal reminder that new experiences and challenges still lie ahead.
“I was feeling very stuck in one place at the time emotionally so this song was a bit of a call to arms for myself,” Gardiner explains. “Realizing there’s still a world out there and that there are new challenges to face and finding beauty in that.”
Originally built around saxophone, floor tom, and voice, “Lady Of The Lake” evolved through live performances before taking shape in the studio. Its defining sound emerged by accident when the duo recorded Robertson’s guitar amplifier through a microphone positioned roughly 15 feet away in another room, still covered by a cloth dust bag.
“We were both quite taken by the ‘haunted’ sound of it and that became the north star for the recording,” Gardiner recalls.
The track also incorporates drum samples from a vintage Maestro Rhythm King, triggered by drummer Lyle Molzan’s performance. This combination of mechanical percussion and live playing adds a distinctive rhythmic character beneath the driving guitar and saxophones.
For MOONRIIVR, the recording reflects their instinctive approach to production. Rather than working toward a predetermined arrangement, the duo build layers and gradually strip them back until the song’s character comes into focus.
As the duo continue shaping their second album, “Lady Of The Lake” offers a glimpse into the next chapter of their creative partnership.Ad
Prince Edward Island singer-songwriter Shane Pendergast releases his fifth album, Jack Pine, a reflective collection of traditional folk songs rooted in history, nature, and the cycles that connect one generation to the next. Led by focus track “The Maiden Voyage,” the record finds Pendergast looking backward without becoming fixed in the past, considering what recurring patterns can reveal about the lives we are living now.
A constant songwriter, Pendergast realized the album was taking shape as a cohesive group of songs emerged alongside a period of playing with different musicians and becoming increasingly excited by the sounds they were creating together. Underneath those songs was an idea he continually found himself returning to – history repeats itself.
“I think a lot about the past and how it applies to the present,” Pendergast explains, pointing to one of his favourite observations from Henry David Thoreau: Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new. “I am always thinking about the cycles of life, and I think the songs on this record reflect that thinking.”
Those cycles come sharply into focus on “The Maiden Voyage,” a sparse folk song about uncertainty, upheaval, and beginning again. Its title refers to a ship’s first journey, an image Pendergast uses to capture the peculiar combination of hope and apprehension that accompanies setting out into the unknown.
The song itself arrived almost as instinctively as its subject suggests. Pendergast first picked out its melody in the back seat of a car during a road trip, then wrote the lyrics in a single sitting the following morning without entirely understanding what the song meant. He put it aside until roughly a year later, when turbulence in his own life and a massive hurricane striking the Maritimes suddenly brought its imagery back into focus. “It’s a song about cycles in life; the process of breaking and building,” he explains.
That sense of exposure also shaped the recording. Rather than surrounding “The Maiden Voyage” with a full arrangement, Pendergast and engineer/co-producer Mark Westberg recorded it solo and live off the floor, allowing the lyric and performance to carry the track without embellishment.
The approach reflects the wider philosophy behind Jack Pine. For the past several years, Pendergast has felt himself moving away from the frameworks of other songwriters and toward a musical language increasingly recognizable as his own. Eastern Canadian folk remains his home base, with the sea, natural world, and history providing recurring imagery through which he examines change, continuity, and lived experience.
Much of that identity was reinforced during the album’s unusually communal recording process. Pendergast and his fellow musicians moved into an old church for five days, living and recording together before spending their evenings around the fireplace playing cards, swapping stories, and joking late into the night.
Rather than treating tradition as something fixed, Jack Pine draws on the music Pendergast inherited while allowing personal experience to reshape it, continuing the same process of transmission and reinvention that has kept folk songs alive for generations.
Nova Scotia-based artist Jont shares “Feel So Much,” an intimate new single about recognizing emotional withdrawal in someone you love. Pairing reflective alternative songwriting with a surprisingly uplifting undercurrent, the track emerged at a fragile point in a relationship, when renewed closeness began giving way to familiar patterns of avoidance.
The song arrived shortly after Jont returned from a dream trip to New York with his then-partner. Their journey to that point had been anything but straightforward, but after finding their way back together, he felt ready to see where the relationship could lead. Soon after coming home, however, he sensed something beginning to shift.
Following a phone conversation, Jont closed his eyes and tried to feel into what his partner might be experiencing. Within five minutes, the initial lyrics to “Feel So Much” appeared without an instrument in sight. Only afterwards did he pick up his guitar, with the music dropping almost fully formed around the words.
“I wrote the song as a way of trying to help my partner see what was going on,” Jont explains. “I sent it to her as a voice note, with guitar and vocals, 30 minutes after we had talked and she was kind of shocked. The picture I’d drawn of her was pretty bang on. It was drawn in love. I was completely committed to our relationship.”
Although the relationship ultimately ended, “Feel So Much” avoids turning that outcome into an accusation. For Jont, the song instead considers how trauma can affect our ability to remain present with difficult feelings, and how numbing out can become an instinctive form of self-protection.
Once in the studio, Jont added a bridge written after the breakup. Imagining his former partner eventually hearing the finished song, he wanted to offer consolation rather than bitterness, an instinct that also pulled the music away from becoming overly downbeat.
“I find it hard to write downbeat songs,” he says. “My natural urge is always resurgence. I can’t stay down for long. Here I wanted to sing to my ex after our break up, and despite how things ended, I wanted to offer her some consolation.”
“The song came through so naturally and so quickly, it was like a sketch on an envelope inspired by how I knew a certain person,” Jont continues. “There’s an intriguing jauntiness to the song itself that kind of says ‘fuck it,’ surrenders to what is, accepts its fate.”
What began as a song written for one person ultimately captures something broader about accepting what cannot be changed. Things did not unfold as Jont hoped, but time brought its own resolution – he and his former partner are now friends.
Despite being George Collins’s debut novel, PLAYING THE CHANGES is hardly the sort of book that appeared overnight.
In fact, Collins spent eighteen years getting it from the first idea to the finished novel, during which time he managed a career in international finance, returned seriously to music, released four albums of original material, became a father, researched neurosurgery and jazz to an almost obsessive degree, wrote more than a hundred drafts and eventually adapted the story into a screenplay that has gone on to win several international awards. So while the book may be described as a debut, there is an awful lot of life behind it.
The original idea arrived in perhaps the most appropriate way imaginable for a novel so concerned with music, dreams and transformation. Collins woke up in the middle of the night after dreaming of a man standing beneath blazing stage lights, playing a saxophone with sweat and tears running down his face while a woman watched from a bar, encouraging him. He got out of bed, went to his office and wrote an eight-page treatment containing the essential elements of the story. The strange thing is that the image remained with him for years before eventually becoming the closing point of PLAYING THE CHANGES.
At the centre of the novel is Ray Stark, a highly successful neurosurgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital who is approaching the pinnacle of his professional career. Ray is the sort of man who likes things to make sense. His world is built around intelligence, discipline, control and the reassuring belief that problems can be solved if you understand them well enough. Unfortunately, life has a rather inconvenient habit of refusing to behave according to those rules.
The death of Ray’s young daughter changes everything. What initially looks like a story about grief gradually becomes something much larger, as the loss begins to dismantle the emotional architecture Ray has spent his entire life constructing. His marriage suffers, his career begins to unravel and his psychological stability deteriorates. More importantly, the tragedy forces him to confront parts of himself that he has spent decades avoiding.
That includes his childhood. Ray grew up with an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, learning early that vulnerability was something to fear and emotional distance was a useful form of protection. As an adult, he has convinced himself that he is nothing like his father, yet gradually begins to recognise that emotional withdrawal can inflict its own kind of damage.
The novel is at its most interesting when it explores this uncomfortable territory, because Ray isn’t simply being asked to recover from what happened to him. He has to acknowledge what he has done to other people as well.
This is where the book’s title starts to make considerably more sense.
Music has always been central to George Collins’s own life, and in PLAYING THE CHANGES it becomes the means through which Ray begins to find a way forward. After abandoning the saxophone many years earlier, he rediscovers jazz at a point when virtually every other part of his life has fallen apart. It’s not presented as some convenient magical cure. Ray has to struggle with the instrument, learn again and accept that he cannot simply impose his will upon the music.
His mentor Ozzie gives him perhaps the most important piece of advice in the entire novel: “You gotta learn to listen, man!” It sounds like straightforward musical instruction, but it applies just as directly to Ray’s emotional life. He has spent years talking, deciding, diagnosing, controlling and fixing. Now he has to listen.
And that is essentially what playing the changes requires. Jazz depends upon responding to what is happening rather than simply following a predetermined path. You listen to the other musicians, understand where the music is going and adapt. For Ray, who has spent his life trying to eliminate uncertainty, this is a remarkably difficult lesson.
Collins’s own research into the musical side of the story was extensive. He is a lifelong musician and guitarist, but not a saxophonist, so he immersed himself in books about the instrument and studied transcriptions of classic saxophone solos by players including Coleman Hawkins, John Coltrane, Lester Young and Sonny Rollins. He also accumulated an enormous collection of jazz recordings while writing the novel. That attention to detail matters because music isn’t simply sitting in the background here as atmospheric decoration.
There is inevitably an interesting parallel between Collins and his protagonist, given that Collins himself walked away from a long career in finance and eventually returned to music and writing. But the author is careful not to suggest that Ray is an autobiographical character. Collins describes his own return to creativity as something driven by artistic impulses that resurfaced as he approached fifty, whereas Ray’s reinvention comes after losing his daughter, his marriage and his career. The similarities are therefore more philosophical than biographical: both men discover that the identity they have built around themselves isn’t necessarily the identity they have to keep.
The book also benefits from Collins’s own interest in psychology, philosophy and spirituality. Those ideas aren’t simply bolted onto the story, but form part of the characters’ attempts to understand why their lives have gone wrong and what, if anything, can be done about it. Ray’s journey is about grief and responsibility, while Cathy has her own spiritual and emotional journey. The novel is interested in faith and doubt, control and spontaneity, trust and betrayal, forgiveness, reconciliation and second chances. In other words, most of the things that make being a human being considerably more complicated than being a neurosurgeon.
There is a considerable amount of research behind the medical side, too. Collins spent years reading about the brain and neurosurgery, even taking online courses to ensure that the details were credible.
That may sound slightly excessive until you remember that he was writing about a neurosurgeon while having no professional experience in the field. The same applies to Boston, where the story is set. Collins had visited the area as a boy because his mother’s family came from there, but much of the research for the setting was carried out online before he eventually returned to Boston to check his descriptions and directions.
One of the more unexpected details surrounding the novel is Collins’s connection with Grammy-winning jazz saxophonist Joe Lovano. The two met at a jazz club in Prague and stayed in touch. Collins eventually sent Lovano a work-in-progress copy of the novel, and Lovano not only gave the book his blessing but agreed to appear in its later chapters. Given how important jazz is to Ray’s transformation, it is a particularly fitting connection.
The long gestation of PLAYING THE CHANGES also seems to have changed Collins as a writer. He has a Masters in English Literature and a law degree, and initially assumed that his facility with language would make writing a novel relatively straightforward. He discovered, rather quickly, that creative writing demanded a completely different way of thinking. More than a hundred drafts followed. Earlier versions apparently contained scenes running to twenty-five pages which eventually had to be reduced to a couple. The process of adapting the novel into a screenplay helped Collins identify what was actually essential to each scene, and the finished book is considerably leaner as a result.
That screenplay now has a life of its own, having won several international awards and attracted interest from Hollywood producers. Collins has written the adaptation himself, retaining the major story points while stripping away the interior monologues that belong to the novel rather than the screen. It is easy to see why the story would appeal in that format. A brilliant surgeon losing his professional identity after the death of his daughter, an imploding marriage, childhood trauma, a rediscovered love of jazz and the possibility of redemption gives it plenty to work with. But the novel has the advantage of being able to sit inside Ray’s head in a way that film cannot.
Perhaps the most revealing thing Collins says about the book is also the simplest. Asked what advice he would give aspiring novelists, he answers, “Don’t write what you know – write what you feel.”
That seems to explain PLAYING THE CHANGES rather well. Collins didn’t need to have been a neurosurgeon or to have experienced Ray’s particular tragedy. He needed to understand the emotional questions underneath it. What happens when control stops working? Can a person escape the patterns they learned as a child? How much damage can good intentions hide? And is it really possible to change after years of behaving in the same way?
Collins clearly believes it is. He has said that he would like to think writing the novel made him a more open and empathic person, and that when he catches himself becoming withdrawn or difficult with his family, he can recognise the warning sign and remind himself, “Don’t be like Ray!”
Ultimately, PLAYING THE CHANGES is a novel about a man who has spent most of his life believing that the answer to everything is to become better at controlling it. Grief teaches him otherwise. Music teaches him something else: that sometimes you have to listen, respond, take a risk and accept that you don’t know exactly where the next note is going.
For a book that began with a dream of a saxophonist playing through sweat and tears beneath a spotlight, it seems entirely appropriate that Ray’s journey eventually comes down to the music.
If stories about grief, reinvention, jazz, damaged families and people discovering that starting over is considerably harder than simply deciding to do it are your kind of thing, PLAYING THE CHANGES is well worth seeking out.
PLAYING THE CHANGES is available to purchase on Amazon and Audible from November 3.
