Come Back To Earth | Music & Mental Health

Grief doesn’t always arrive as tears. Sometimes it arrives as instinct, the sudden, sharp reflex to call someone who isn’t there anymore.

I’m sitting down with Canadian folk-pop songwriter Joe McLeod to talk about his single, “ARROWS” the first release from his upcoming album TORN. Written over years of reflection following the loss of his father at age 22, “ARROWS” explores the weight of becoming the protector.

From writing in solitude on an acoustic guitar to intimate house shows in Switzerland, this conversation explores loss not as a one-time event, but as a lifelong reshaping. 

In This Episode:
  • Navigating the loss of a parent in early adulthood.
  • Understanding grief as an evolving process, not a destination.
  • The journey of writing alone versus the energy of the studio.
  • Creating a shared, present-moment refuge for the audience.
Go backstage HERE
Theme music by: Lincoln Parish

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From the Studio
This episode is part of Come Back To Earth, produced by Story House. We believe story is a tool for meaning-making, not just performance.
Leave a voice message or reflection

The Letterbox
I read every letter. If something in this episode landed for you, or raised something you're still sitting with, I'd love to hear it.

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Presence over persuasion. Consistency over frequency. http://storyhousestudio.org

Creators and Guests

Host
J.D. Murgolo
Founder of Story House

What is Come Back To Earth | Music & Mental Health?

What does it cost to make music, and what does it give back? Come Back to Earth is a weekly music interview podcast where host J.D. Murgolo sits down with musicians and songwriters to explore mental health, creative survival, and the stories hidden behind the songs.

We go beyond the stage to uncover the wounds, turning points, and hard-won hopes that shape an artist's life. Through honest conversations about the creative process, music and mental health, and what it means to keep going, this is a show where the music is the doorway — and the soul is the destination.

Because the most important thing an artist makes isn't the record. It's the decision to come back to themselves.

J.D.: [00:00:00] Every story begins somewhere. This one begins with Story House Studios.

Opening Memory
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J.D.: There was a moment recently where I reached out for my phone, not even thinking, just instinct. Something had happened, small, ordinary, and my first thought was to call him and then I, grief doesn't always arrive as tears. Sometimes it's muscle memory. Sometimes it's the reflex of reaching for someone who taught you how to stand.

How to listen to music. That's where this episode begins.

Intro
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J.D.: This is Come Back To Earth, a podcast of the intersection of music and mental health from fragile moments. I'm jd a Storytelling Alchemist, and each episode is an imitation to return to the stories, [00:01:00] wounds, and hopes behind the songs. Because when the song ends, the story begins.

Episode Orientation
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J.D.: When I sat down with Joe McLeod, I didn't expect how familiar the train would feel. Joe wrote arrows after years of carrying the loss of his father, A man who would walk through fire for the people he loved. A man who would take the hit so someone else didn't have to. This isn't a conversation about loss as a moment.

It's about what happens after.

Joe McLeod Part 1
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Joe: my name is Joe McLeod. I am currently sitting in a small studio apartment in a mountain in Switzerland which is a very obscure place to be sitting for me given I come from a very small farm town in Canada called Keswick. Yeah, so I am a musician. I'm a singer songwriter, mainly. I generally say I'm a folk pop [00:02:00] kind of artist, but I really write a lot of different things and it's I don't love the pigeonhole, so it's a bit hard to do that, for the sake of it, I would say blend a folk, pop and rock.

Honestly, I think for me it starts generally, truthfully we were talking about this a minute before we started recording, but it's like the pre and post version of me. When my dad passed away, my dad passed away when I was 22 years old. I was doing music professionally already. I was starting to release music, I was touring.

But that really. Cemented a kind of pivotal point in my life where the expression became much more significant than just writing songs that felt fun and good which has its place, but it became more of an expression and I realized to me the art became a lot more about expression and a connecting with myself, but b, trying to connect with other people through that.

So I don't know about you, but for me, that's what music, like all my favorite artists, my favorite songs, stem from that point where I could see something about myself in the music, whether I related to it, how they meant it or not.

J.D.: I talk about that a lot and I apologize if people like hear me say that often, but that I know I'm not like a unique listener, but [00:03:00] sometimes I feel like I do because. It's really just the artists that say things like that, and then it's you know when you ask somebody like what their favorite song is and then they tell you and you go, I love that song too. What do you love about it? And they're like I just like the way it, like it, you know, the beat. And that's fine. But to me, and I don't know, I don't remember anybody telling me, or anybody throwing that in my way. But that's what I, that's what I come back to is the songs that, and it could be just the sound of it that, put something emotionally in me, but the words, and, sometimes you need that fun and you have no idea what just came outta your mouth because you repeated what they said, but.

Other times it's I, and you're right. You hear things differently. When you have life events like that, but you hear a lyric and you're like, oh, I got it now. I got exactly what you meant. I didn't understand that 10 years ago. I get you. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know.

Sometimes if writers of music, and even just the artist, 'cause sometimes it's the kind of duality, right? An artist is writing it as well as somebody else, but I don't know how much of that thought goes into, unless you've had some kind of [00:04:00] event that shifted you.

Joe: Yeah, I don't know. I think a lot of the times writers are just, especially if they're just trying to get an album done or trying to get something moving. They'll just write about whatever's happening where, when something happens to you, whatever it is. Good, bad. It's, it becomes like a pivotal driving force where I couldn't not write the songs that I wrote, when my dad passed away because there was no other option for me.

That's what I needed to write. If I didn't write that, I couldn't have written something else. And I think often to that point and we were chatting about my newest song that just came out, like I didn't even fully, truthfully, I didn't even fully understand. What I was writing.

J.D.: Your

Joe: When I was writing it, I just knew that it felt right and the expression was there and I was telling, the story of what I was going through and what felt accurate.

But only after did I finish the song that I looked back and said wow, like I didn't even realize that. I felt like I was almost being guided through this. I don't necessarily, me and my friend Dan, who produced this song, he's one of my best [00:05:00] friends an incredible producer. And songwriter is him and I often talk about we'll be in the room and it was just like the universe just had something floating around and we were able to snatch it outta the sky.

And like a lot of the songs that we do come like that and, this song Arrows was, it was I had, I'd come in with kind of a formulated song, but it was one of those moments where the universe opened up and gave us something that felt a little bit more profound.

J.D.: And again, I think we like called it like, hokey so

Joe: Yeah. Yeah,

J.D.: really not. It's how I think it's just how your brain works. We just, nobody wants to call it that, we're trying to look for a different name or just, no I, that's how I write. That's who I am.

And maybe you are, but. I, I gotta believe that there's gotta there's moments like that,

Joe: There's

J.D.: whether you, what, whatever you want to call it, the universe or God speaking, or Buddha, whatever, something fell upon you and it just you either took the opportunity to pull it down, like you said, or you let it float past you and somebody else will

Joe: Somebody else will grab it. And I think that, in my opinion, that's the, like I'm a real firm believer that, even shitty [00:06:00] things in our lives happen for not for a reason, but they happen for a purpose and it's greater than us, right? They happen because life, like taking the idea of, someone that you love passing away.

Obviously it doesn't happen for a reason, as in oh, they were meant to pass because something greater is gonna happen. Life unfolds in the way that life unfolds. And I think, in my case, everything that I've had happened passed or since my father passed away has led me to where I am and who I am.

And those are all the little factors and little kind of checkpoints along the road that allowed me in that moment, in that room. With that friend and that feeling to be able to get that song from where I was. And maybe if I, I didn't stop at that coffee shop that morning and talk to the barista and say, I really like your glasses and it made their day and, or something like that.

I wouldn't have been in the frame of mind to be able to do that. And I really think that those chain of events inform everything in life, not just art, like everything about our lives. And it's the way that we mentally. [00:07:00] Pursue those moments. And I think we can go through things blind and floating, and not be aware.

And I think big moments in your life, like losing someone particularly for me, makes you really appreciate and be aware of all of those things tenfold,

J.D.: yeah, and I like the way you put it, that you just not finding a reason because you're there may not be, and especially if you're searching for. Something, like a reason and a loss. Like you, you'll drive yourself bananas for days, months, years going what for?

And trying to find that moment. Or, even like you said, like just, adding up all these things. You can either, say it out loud oh, that like this happened because of this. Or you just smile and go that happened.

Joe: Exact.

J.D.: Isn't this wonderful that it happened in this chain and got to this point?

Because I Go ahead and I, because see it as you're saying, lost too, ease that weight that my, my father passed seven days ago at this point of this conversation at least. But that's how I've looked at everything, and I know that's completely new in the journey. I know that's completely [00:08:00] unique too, in the way that you're looking at things.

Altogether. And I, and I take a lot of credit from my mom in the way that she's processing it is the same that even, like you're trying to like, protect her as the older son, but you, like her words are mirrored. That it's isn't that kind of interesting that this is what's going on and interesting.

That this is how this happened, and that's all it has to be, versus, okay, see if that didn't happen, this didn't, and that just doesn't make

Joe: Yeah, first, I know I said it before, but I'll say it again. I'm so sorry for your loss, man. It's not easy in any sense of the matter at any point. And like I constantly, the reevaluation of how hard it is sucks too. I felt like a year in, I was like, I'm grieving great.

I think I've got this figured out. I'm like, I think

J.D.: gonna win this

Joe: Yeah. Yeah. I think I've.

J.D.: else is bawling. I'm

Joe: Yeah. I held this together. I'm fine. A month later I'm like, on my knees, just going like, why? What's going, like, why does this have to happen? I think that's it. Like looking for reason [00:09:00] instead of just accepting that it is.

And like my dad was significantly older. My dad was born in 1946. I was born in 1997, so like very, a much older father. And when I was younger that meant certain things, like we couldn't play catch 'cause he had a bad shoulder. Things like when you're a kid, you're like, I don't understand what this is.

But then as you're older you realize that like I gained so much value from him being older through his wisdom, through his life experience, through coming up through a different world. I gained work ethic, I gained all these things because of those circumstances, but that's also the single circumstance that led to him passing away when I was much younger.

It wasn't expected, but he was an older man that had. Different health implications. So I think there's something to be said about, the world unfolding in the ways that it does and what unfolds both, before us after this. It's, it's sometimes hard to see in the moment, but I really do think that there's powerful lessons and we can learn a lot through those moments.

I don't know, like seven days in like, how are you feeling in [00:10:00] terms. Of, this is a bold question for seven days, but we're here like, like when you think of, that idea of it's happened, it's evidently terrible and tragic in seven days. Do you feel a sense of dread? Do you feel a sense of hope?

Do you feel a sense of stillness? Is there anything that you're feeling, that's rooting right this moment that could change five minutes from now, but

J.D.: There's a sovereignty to the silence at the moment, and

Joe: would love to hear more about

J.D.: It's just the, and I think that's just who I am. My parents both, but my father especially was first and foremost, like the, my Introduction to Music. I have a lot of, lot to thank. And this is exactly probably why this show exists in this format.

Because it's the words that I listen to and that's what I love hearing about artists, but. A lot of it did what music like should do it. It brought you some version of, inner peace. So I think that's just always been instilled in me, in a way. And so getting to this moment, not that you saw it coming, but you knew, I think we [00:11:00] just knew that that's what, that, that's what happens in life is you die.

And being able to say that, I was listening to something the other day that was. I think it was like people, and I had another, we talked about, another serendipitous moment was the show that I enjoy listening to, and they were talking about writers of obituaries. I'm like this is interesting. Let me listen.

But the person said something like fantastic in a way that anytime Pearson, submitted a, an obituary. They would turn it back to, this is like a newspaper or a local newspaper that they were talking about. They would turn it away and tell 'em, like to rewrite it or they weren't gonna publish it.

If they use the word they passed on or they transitioned to it. And we use those terms. As far as, when we were like, like just talking to each other, my, my parents or my, my, my mother and I and my brother. I'm very sensitive of a five and a 3-year-old, so we had to be sensitive how we talk.

We just. Said, went, they went to heaven. That didn't mean anything to them entirely. It's just the same as talking about the North Pole in their heads, but it was just the wording. Yeah. So I get the, I get what they were saying you don't wanna [00:12:00] soften it, for their wording. 'cause they said that they just wanted to talk about the fact that like the person died and that, this person is no long.

And, removing those like, ambiguous terms. And I, that's just how we've always addressed all this. And so I think that kind of like levels me at the

Joe: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really unique perspective from an obituary point of view. It's so true that it's very factual. It's very, father?

J.D.: know what they were gonna, I was like, oh man, this guy's gonna say something very harsh in a very, and I, and then as soon as he said it, I was like, no, that's true because we compartmentalize a lot of this, and I think. To me. That's, that's what music is supposed to do, right?

It's an expression of something, either joy or grief or, anger, whatever it is. And it's not compartmentalized. And I think, that's, that's how we sat there with a, I'm sure, I'm sorry if everybody was looking for like a joy, so like episode here, but it's gonna get, a little bit more serious.

We sat there with like a playlist of a song that came from each of us, my wife, me, my brother, my mom, and just hearing those [00:13:00] songs. And it was very like, instantaneous that, what song would you choose? And my, my mom of course knew it instantly.

Brother, brother like pulled a song that he, probably got played like by dad. My wife pulled a song that my dad. Played for our, chose for our wedding day. So it was just, and it happened so fast. And so looking at that, if I pull it, just to the music end of everything, that's what he, that's his gift to me.

And there's Milt a multitude of things, from, like you said, like throwing balls and learning how to play sports and, the intellectual side of it. But that if I had to find like one thing that, like he passed on, to me it's that gift of music and being able to hear it in a way that.

Not all the time, right? Sometimes it's just a, a foam party kind of beat and that's all it needs to be. But I always find myself gravitating to the music that you can tell that the artist put something into it that left it up to you. They weren't like this is about a song about, and I've heard jokes about that.

Once they sound, I forget who it was, I feel like it's Eric [00:14:00] Hutchinson or something like that, but he had a song and I listened to him play it like, like in a live cd. And he was explaining it and he said that the song was like, about his cat, or no, excuse me. It was Jason Raz as I'm hearing.

I kept saying it and he was talking about whatever. And it's a popular song that was like about his cat and if you listen to it, not a clue. And that to me is and I'm sure you can speak to that even better, especially with this song it's like it leaves it to the listener to go, okay, I don't know what you're, I don't know exactly what you just said there.

But if I jumble it around and put it together in my head, as as a different puzzle, this is it. This is how I hear it. And that to me is what music is for.

Joe: a form of active listening. It, there's a certain, yeah, there's a certain element of interpretation with music that, it's funny too like I can hear, there's a song that I love, it's called your Spring by a band called, Hey, Rosetta. From Newfoundland in Canada, they've been on a hiatus for years.

It's one of the saddest hiatuses I've heard, but they have this song that both in moments of triumph and [00:15:00] just like pure joy, I can blast this song and feel like I'm on top of a mountain. And in moments of pure desperation, I can blast it and feel like I'm, being held at the bottom of a cavern softly.

And it's crazy that I can interpret the same words. In completely different context, depending on those, that active listening of, what am I trying to get outta this and what do I need outta this right now? And I think that's from a writer's perspective, you're writing what you need, but at the same time, you do want to give, at least in my opinion, you wanna give some room for interpretation.

And don't get me wrong, there's songs where you're gonna be blunt because it's something you need to say bluntly. But mostly it's like I can say what I need to say in ways that aren't explicit. And those are my favorite songs. That's why Your Spring is something that I can listen to in those two moments because it doesn't mark, it doesn't hit the nail on the head or whatever, it's, there's a line in that song that says, doctor, I'm bandage my eyes. I feel the light and I'm ready to be out in it.

J.D.: Whew.

Joe: And it's you could read that [00:16:00] or you could hear that and go that's poetic. That's cool. But when I hear that, I feel it in my soul. I don't even know.

What it means

J.D.: I was gonna say, I don't know entirely what that meant either, if you sit with it, you know it, I'm sure something

Joe: can interpret it a hundred different ways.

J.D.: And I bet you if you ask them the artists, they'd say the same thing. Truly, maybe they'd have a more specific for them, but they'd say the same thing that like, I don't, they'd probably turn it around to you like a good artist.

I can

Joe: felt like this.

J.D.: does it mean to you? And then he, then it hits you one way or the other, I think. I don't know.

Midpoint Reflection
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J.D.: There's a line in the song that keeps circling back to me, gathering up the arrows. It's a powerful image because at some point the protector is gone and you realize you're the one standing in the open. Listening back, I kept thinking about how grief, reshapes, responsibility, not just what we miss, but who we're becoming.

so how does that play [00:17:00] out then in, in your role as a, as an artist and writing, especially a song like this,

Joe: Yeah. Truthfully it's, I think just out of the practice of writing, it's become ha habitual for me where I'm not being explicit. So I, it's not something I actively do in the moment. 'cause in the moment I don't wanna censor myself in any way. And maybe in a revision I'd go back and re-look.

But I actually, truthfully, it's something that I feel like I've progressed through because when I first started writing songs. I was really symbolic and I was really into like I, I'm a big fan of Leonard Cohen, a big fan of Damien Rice, a big fan of these guys that use these big analogies and symbols to like profess grand feelings.

And I still love that lyrical style, but I progressed into being a lot more specific, but I almost find in specificity. You allow greater interpretation sometimes, so with this song it's like very, like lyrically it's very specific to me in the sense of some of the lines are like, I opened up a [00:18:00] bible for the first time in a while trying to finally understand these words.

Like I was raised Catholic. I never felt super aligned with it. And I distanced myself. I explored Buddhism and Taoism and Hinduism, and I explored all these world religions and I was able to find things in them that were powerful to me that I could take with me. But I never did that with Christianity because I was raised in it and I had a, an affliction to it.

So I was like maybe that's the thing I need to do and I can open it up and read it and, and I'm gonna try to understand this. And the following line is, my heart might not be able. But I'll walk through here still because it's giving me some comfort. Like I don't know my relationship with it, but when I read it and I think about it, it gives me comfort.

And so it's like very specific. But I have friends that have heard this and they interpret it in their own ways and it's, I think that's the beauty of it is for me, it's said exactly what I needed to say as I was sitting on a couch crying, reading a Bible, going fuck, could something give me meaning?

J.D.: Give

Joe: And to them it meant something completely different. So truthfully, it's not an active [00:19:00] thought anymore, but I think it's just, it's part and parcel of trying to express yourself in a way that feels, at least for me, like the lyrics are super important to me. That's like you said, like it's the way I've always interpreted music.

I can listen to an instrumental song and love it, but the words are the thing that hook me and make me come back and. For me writing, it's like I really think about what I'm saying and it's not something that I take lightly. So it's not me thinking about trying to be symbolic. It's about me trying to understand my own thoughts in a way that I could almost make symbolic for myself.

Like it's very real. I'm sitting there reading the Bible, but the symbolism comes in the second line and I try to mirror specificity with kind of analogies that link up for myself. So when I think of that song. It tells my story for me. So when I'm playing it live, I don't have to think about what was that word?

What was that line I wrote that meant nothing?

J.D.: And it sounds like you, not that you were, like trying to write a song like from it, but it almost sounds like you were having these. These moments of [00:20:00] processing the

Joe: Oh, all the

J.D.: it was, we call it what you will, whether you journal it where you put it down on the, your Apple Notes or whatever the case may be, it was like simultaneous, it sounds like that.

It's okay, this is what I did today. I wonder why. And in an ex, and that in that exploration you were, like what, is there a lyric that goes on simply because that's what you do. Everybody has their own versions of what they did with it, it could be that they tattooed it on 'em or they, they wrote it down on the wall in paint or whatever.

But it sounds like you took the moments of, your processing and kind of pieced it together to make its own song slash

Joe: and it's those waves I find. It's like my first album came out like I, my dad died, and then, I basically, spent maybe three months, four months, just like very much in a kind of grieving, numb state. And then immediately started working on my first record. And it was in the mixture of like my dad dying in a relationship blooming.

So the record is like a really weird dichotomy of like really good love songs and then [00:21:00] just sad grieving songs. And I thought to myself like. That's a record that I've expressed and I've parked it, and those are those thoughts. And second record comes around. I find myself writing more songs that are about grief and about my dad and about this ever-changing relationship with me.

Now, growing in a world without him and having those moments when you want to call and I got a flat tire and I remember I was driving this shitty dinky Toyota Yaris in the middle of, I was near Sarnia, Ontario, which is in the middle of

J.D.: way out there.

Joe: And I hit a nail on the highway, spun out off the highway, and I was, my first instinct was like I gotta call my dad 'cause he's the guy who knows how to fix the tire.

And he'll fi, he'll come and it's I ca I'm like, oh, sh, I can't do that. And it's every chapter has things, and like for example, I moved to Switzerland. And I am doing, I'm here, I'm writing a lot of music. I'm also just working. I'm trying to put pieces packed together in ways that I haven't tried before because things, the pieces [00:22:00] weren't fitting.

And I find myself in completely different ways, finding myself, encountering that grief in ways that I wouldn't even have thought could exist because the path that I chose this way to Switzerland led me into these walls of grief. And it's a constant evolution. And that's where arrows. Really came from is it's a constant battle.

And I think I was feeling all this burden of my dad was somebody who carried the weight of other people. He's somebody who made sure that, like I said, when I spun out on the highway, if I called, he would've been like, don't do anything. I'll drive five hours to get you right. He's that guy and I wanna be that guy.

And I am in a lot of ways 'cause I carry that, but I'm also not, in a lot of ways I'm selfish, I'm immature, like I have all these other tendencies. And it's it's a battle in my own brain and trying to figure out the ways I carry him. And, there's, I saw the song theme came from this idea. I saw this picture on Facebook and it was a bunch of children, and it was this wolf.

Like a large werewolf esque [00:23:00] figure crouching over them in one frame. And in that frame it looked like this beast was gonna hurt these children. And in the next frame, like a comic strip, it zoomed out. And it was actually the werewolf shielding these kids from a bunch of arrows that are now in the werewolf's back.

And it just, it clicked for me with my dad. 'cause when I grew up, my dad was a hard guy. Like he's from New Brunswick, grew up doing construction. Dropped outta school when he was 16. He's a hard dude. My, my upbringing was like, if you're gonna cry, go inside. He's like a hard body. We would call him in rural Ontario, so I really envisioned this, but he's the guy who would protect you no matter what.

He would shield you.

J.D.: a reason for it.

Joe: And it made me realize that I'm trying to be that for people, but really what that is me picking those arrows up. Even when they, when I can't shield them, I can at least pick up some pieces, and carry that with me in those ways. And it's an evolution, man.

It's, I constantly find myself encountering walls of grief and every single time I'm like, fuck. More what? How,

J.D.: and to hear you [00:24:00] use those words, not that there's, there's all those cliche saying, right? There's no timeline, like there's no script. There's all those things. But now sitting on the other side of it, like those are, and they were probably entertaining to me before, but now they're just, I just look at it like, this is such a weird world, that it's like a, it's like a club that, like what?

Like you. I don't, I've never explored people that are grief counselors but it's like one of those things that like, you need a doctorate to be able to perform surgery. Do you need to have had somebody pass to be able to talk about it and use that kind? And I don't mean because like you don't understand it, but to be able to use that terminology right there that you've res, there's an evolution to it that is way different like.

Then it's gonna take time. Those two phrases mean exactly the same thing, but you hear it and go, no kidding, it's gonna take time. I would like to know when

Joe: Yeah.

J.D.: you know that there's not an answer to that, but then hearing the word evolution, whatever you, whenever you're growing up was whether they taught evolution at school or not.

You still [00:25:00] understand that, yes, still takes time, but there was no. Like path until like it's all said and done that like it got from here to here if that was 200 years, there's no, so that almost like releases that and then the resolution and just saying that like you're finding these walls like pop up and you're, constantly like realizing that you're having to reshape what the resolution looks like.

Not to like make light of it, but it almost looks like there's like a joy in it in your face.

Joe: There is. There is.

J.D.: is, like that grief counselor or whatever grief expert. Do they have that language or the person to talk about it? And I think, that's that to me is like the difference maker of how people process things is not that you had to experience something traumatic, but just understanding the empathy that goes along with the language that hearing like, yes.

Are you okay? Is fantastic to ask somebody, but did you really need to ask you that way? Knowing that what's going on, and. To me like that, like just, not to force the, like the back to the music, but that's what it's doing is giving you a [00:26:00] different language, instrumentally or not to sit there and go, oh, I, I have no idea what that lyric meant.

That sounded very poetic and beautiful, but it forces you to go. No, my answer is still that I'm not Okay. But that line right there that explains it, like I'm standing on top of the mountain in my own life, the rest of the world around me is falling apart. It's that same like idea I just made that lyric in my head.

It's not very beautiful at all. But it's just being able to say something in a different way that goes, oh, now I get it. It wasn't the same cliche saying, it was like, this is gonna take a long time and it, it's okay not to be okay.

Joe: Oh God, it's, yeah, it's so Okay. And I think you're completely right. I think people, it's not that, yeah, there's a, an honor in, once you have this badge, you can talk about it, but it is a different understanding.

J.D.: It is.

Joe: I think. I think often people who don't or ha who haven't experienced, I, for the example of myself, I'll use grief, but I'm sure this applies to many facets of life.

Like with having kids, like I've never had a child, so I [00:27:00] couldn't compare my idea of what that is to what it is. And I think with grief, it's one of those things where. Or people who've never experienced it, there's like a awkwardness 'cause you're like, I don't know how to bridge that topic. And I don't know how to talk about that.

Or I don't know how to ask you if you're okay. And I think one of the best pieces of advice I got when I was a kid, I had a friend, like one of my best friends when I was a kid, I was probably maybe 10 or 12 years old. His father passed away in an accident. And I remember the advice I received was like, just act like nothing's changed.

J.D.: Correct.

Joe: And it's weird. 'cause at first I was like but everything has changed everything. But at the same time, it's I don't want anyone to treat me differently because of this thing, because like I'm already treating myself differently. Like having stability in those relationships brings a lot of comfort.

And I think, when I think of the musical element of, tying that in, it's like stability with friendships and families. The thing that got me through the rocky moments and the combination of those things allowed me the mental bandwidth to write the songs. 'cause I had safe [00:28:00] places to land a lot of the time, and you mentioned that joy in encountering those walls and like in a weird way, because I have a support system and I've got this kind of solid track now, and it's been years that I have my feet under me again in a weird way, those walls, I can hit it, but it's also a chance for me to encounter my father again.

In a different light at a different age and think about it in completely different ways. And the music is just my way of being able to catalyze all those thoughts and feelings into something that makes sense for me. Because if not encountering those walls and those thoughts becomes really hard to un like a puzzle that's all mixed up.

It's like I need to figure out the border and I need to figure out the confines and how to frame this thought.

J.D.: Is having a song, specific to, to what you're going through. Not to say that's like the final solution, but does it help answer that question for people? That, and that's something that rattled through my head and I quickly shared it with my brother because.

A, I wanted to get it outta my head, but BI could see it weighing on him a little bit different. He's only five years younger than me, but as far as tragedies go in his life, like [00:29:00] not anything he's the younger protected child, and that's just how it goes. But I remember saying to him, in the days like coming, like leading up to, my father's passing was that I just, I didn't want people to like.

Get to this. And at that time it, we were like right in the middle of Christmas is when he went into the hospital and then, wasn't until almost like a week later before we like transitioned to hospice, but already then. I'm sitting there going I don't if this is the outcome, which, it certainly did seem like it.

Even then, if this is the outcome, like I don't want people to look at me and be like, oh, what a bummer story. And feel bad because it is, and, but it's a story and I, you don't have to look at it and be like, oh, it's that time of year. Let's be Tell Delicate around JD that it's the story there that.

Here, just talk about it. But does having a written out, sung in this, ver in this case, does that kind of if they, come around, to the anniversary of, your father passing and they're like, oh, be careful around Joe. It's that time of year.

Like you go, here's this, can you listen to this song? Does it give like a, [00:30:00] I don't wanna say like an answer or a solution to it, but does it relieve that part of it for you, for other people to go Oh. I don't need to ask if he's, if this is a tough time of year. He definitely sung that and said that and listening to this song, like I've jumped, there's a good way to put it.

I've skipped to the next page here and or the next chapter and go, okay, I could start asking these kind of questions or start talking in this way because now you've put it out

Joe: for sure. Yeah. Honestly, I think for me, having the song does create some sort of mental. Next step where I'm like, okay, I've progressed past this point, but truthfully, I think one of the most interesting things of time moving forward with grief is again, like you said, it's it's oh, it's this time of year.

We have to be careful. It's like it is a story, right? And the people who carry that story, like I carry my father's memory with me every day, and so does my mom and my sister, and maybe, his brothers or his sisters. Most people, like we mentioned before we started recording, are like in a [00:31:00] self-obsessed world.

So I thought it would be more awkward where people are, how are you, oh, I'm sorry, it's this time of year, but 99% of people don't remember, don't mention anything. And in a weird way, that's comforting. 'cause then you realize that story is yours to carry in a good way. And it becomes less about that.

Oh, it's this time of year and it's no it's odd. Like my father's birthday was September and he passed away in mid-December. So it's weird that to me his like death date is much more significant to me than his birthdate. And it's such a weird concept because like in December, that is when my body.

I won't even sometimes realize now, like I'm not checking the calendar, counting down the days, but I can feel my body go. It's coming and it's something that I have to be aware of. I don't have to give it all the space like I used to, but for me, it's a thing that I need to be more aware of than other people, which is a weird twist.

'cause at the beginning I also thought I'm like, oh fuck. Everyone's gonna be like. [00:32:00] Tiptoeing around me, and they don't wanna, they, and they don't want to tell me how great their holiday was because they're like yours couldn't be that great, and it's true, like my ho like, listen, Christmas isn't like my favorite time of the year.

It's been five years. I still don't love it, but it's not

J.D.: can enjoy your Christmas and I can just be thinking a little bit heavier at the same time that's, they can coexist,

Joe: can be there and I can be as joyful as, but it doesn't mean that I, it's like. Even, it's one of those weird things, right? 'cause like before my dad passed, like Christmas still wasn't my favorite holiday. Right? Like it wasn't my, I like Halloween, so it's interesting that it becomes this thing.

And in the beginning there's like a famil, like my family's we all have to be together. And I was like, I kind of wanna be alone,

J.D.: I kind of wanna

Joe: And those first few years of not being alone, I felt like a burden of I have to act like I'm. Okay. Or all of these things, and I think that for me is where the music helps a lot, is I can in those moments from whate, again, it's like the arrows I have to [00:33:00] shield my family.

They don't expect me to. But I need to act like I'm okay for them because to me, that's what I need to do because of my dad and whatever that means. But the music is where I can let that guard down and I can take an arrow to the chest and be like, but this is how I actually feel. And for me, that's what the song does.

It's like less for the other people asking, it's more for me and maybe. In your, in your example, like maybe that's why people haven't had to ask as much is because I do let that shield down and I say you don't have to ask, because here it is. Maybe that is why I've never thought about it.

That's a really good frame of mind to think about it in.

J.D.: Not to put you on the spot here, but do you feel comfortable with sharing, even just singing, like parts of the song or sharing just like a demo about it?

Joe: for sure. Sing it now. Yeah. Yeah. I can get a guitar. Would that be a thing?

J.D.: You could do a

Joe: Okay, let me get a

J.D.: have somebody this season pull out an instrument when I have asked this

Joe: I'm gonna put these headphones down. Lemme get a

J.D.: Go [00:34:00] ahead.

Joe: Can you hear me? I'm back.

J.D.: You're

Joe: Okay. Is that coming through?

J.D.: That's coming through.

Joe: Okay. Yeah, so maybe I'll give a little context as well. For me, like I write a lot of songs and it's interesting, sonically, if you listen to this song, it became huge, like in terms of production value near the end of this song.

But I write most songs sitting alone in a room with an acoustic guitar very quietly.

J.D.: Yeah.

Joe: And this song really just started with four chords, and I didn't think it was gonna change anywhere, but it was,

And that's how it began. And then the chorus really came about with me sitting there asking myself the question. Will I be the one who will gather up the arrows after all that's said and done? Will I ever start to pick up the broken pieces of my torn up tattered heart? And that's where the like [00:35:00] real root of the song came from.

And then I started to, say like I opened up a bible for the first time in while. Trying to fully understand the words. My heart might not be able, but I wandered through the manger to find the knot as loosened on my throat. And it really was just me trying to come to terms with I'm trying to find solace and I'm trying to find, salvation.

Not in a religious sense, but I'm trying to find someone to help me like my dad would have, and I think it's that. Like I talk about I talk about a, a handful of different things, but, the veil and I keep the veil and I lock my secrets away because you're never gonna see them.

You're never gonna know them, because that's the face that I present because I'm being like my dad and I'm shielding you from the arrows. But in the re again, the song is counterintuitive because I'm saying that while giving you the keys, and I think, it's a really interesting thing for me at least in that way because it really helped me like process,

J.D.: [00:36:00] Yeah I

Joe: Some of these thoughts.

Yeah, so that's a little taste of arrows, but again, the production is way bigger. It's like a big, it's a big folk pop kind of production and I'm a big fan of that when, there's a song that goes huge and makes you really feel, but at the core of it, it's lyrics that when I play solo. I play the song like that, and it's not me.

It's not me. There, there's a section of the song that is really big and it's

super big strums, and I'm belting out, and when I play it live, I don't do that because it's not, when I play live solo, at least when I play with the band, I will. But for me it's about the intimacy and it's trying to communicate what the feeling like was in that room, and for me, that's the biggest element of it,

J.D.: joe, thank you so much for sharing your story. More importantly, thank you for gifting your music to the world.

Joe: Thank you for having me. This has been a real pleasure to chat with you.

Closing Reflection
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J.D.: There's something about the idea of arrows. They wound, but they also mark direction. Listening to [00:37:00] Joe talk about his father, about strength, about choir protection. It's a reminder that sometimes grief isn't something we move past. It's something we carry, and sometimes carrying it is the way we honor the ones who once carried us.

Outro
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J.D.: Thank you for joining me on this journey with Joe. If this conversation stayed with you, carry it into your next walk. Your next quiet moment, your next horizon. Music connects us not just through sound, but through shared experience and the courage to keep evolving. If you've got something you want to share about this episode or how music has supported you too in your life, you can send me an email at storytelling pods@gmail.com.

Until next time, keep breathing, keep listening, and keep coming back to [00:38:00] earth.