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The Sunday Blessings Podcast is hosted by Jay Hildebrandt and features stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. You'll hear extended interviews, musician & artist spotlights, and more. Sunday Blessings can be heard weekly on Sundays from 5am-5pm mountain standard time on Classy 97, Sunny 97, and Classy 97 Lite.
Sharing stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. This is the Sunday blessings podcast. Welcome to the Sunday blessings podcast. I'm Jay Hildebrandt, and joining me today is Melissa Shrade. Melissa Shrade is a musical, composer and singer, and we're going to be playing one of her songs for you.
And we wanna talk about that song. We'll get the story behind the song. Melissa, how are you doing today? I am doing great, Jay. It's finally it's great to finally connect with you.
That's right. You're an international traveler. That's true. Alright. So, Melissa, tell us a little bit about yourself and your musical background, first of all.
I have been singing and dancing since I was three. My mom has a picture of me, three years old, with the, orange hymn book from, the primary class. I'm three years old. I have nothing on but a diaper and the book, and I'm leading the primary in, song. So I started from a really early age.
I performed all over the world. I've worked for Disney. I've worked for Universal Studios. I've been to Japan. I've been to Greece, Athens.
We did a really great show in Greece. And so I've just performed all over and had all kinds of fun, met all kinds of wonderful people. Alright. So what about your your musical training where you learn to sing and to to dance and to compose music? I would love to say I took dance lessons.
I took several dance lessons, and I would love to say that I took intense vocal lessons, but I really didn't. I I think I took one class at BYU, and I wasn't very good at it. So I've never had this formal training that people ask me about. It just has kind of come naturally. Dandy, natural talent.
Mhmm. Okay. Well, I you know, we're gonna be talking in a moment about your beautiful song, I Touched His Robe, which you you composed and you you sing it also. First of all, I want to know a little bit about the composing of of this song. You've composed a few songs you told me, but let's talk about this one in particular.
Is this the first song you composed? Have you It was. Done many before this? This was the first one. Yes.
Yes. And it was around, 02/2006. My brother, my wonderful brother, was a great musician. He was a piano player. He could pick up any piece of music and play it.
Drove us all crazy because he didn't have to read it. But he actually overdosed in 02/2003. And when we were at the funeral, I looked across the casket, and there was a piece of music on the casket that said, I touched his robe. And they say I stole it. I say I just borrowed it.
But I kinda went and took that piece of music off the task because I wasn't aware that it existed. I wanted to know what it was about. So I took that piece of music and never listened to it. I had it for three years in my in my person on my person, and all I knew was the title, I touched his robe. And then about three years later, there was the night that I started thinking, I wanna write something with that title, but it didn't have anything to do with what his version of the song was.
His was completely different, and I didn't find that out till after I'd written mine and performed mine. And they're both beautiful. They're just two different his was written for a choral arrangement, and I just, those words, I touched his robe, and I wrote the song about the woman with an issue of blood. The man they called Isaiah, amidst the crowds of people pressing on. I knew what he could do.
If I could just get to him, I had to move before my chance was gone. His presence filled the air. I knew he held the power. I found myself close enough to touch. I reached out for his robe.
And from that very hour word, the meaning of my life has changed somewhat. I touched his robe. I felt his peace. I felt the pain within me finally cease. And she'd waited so long for the savior to heal her, and that's what my song is about.
I touched his robe. I felt his peace. I felt the pain within me finally cease. So that's where mine came from. And I have since, you know, listened to my brother's arrangement, and it's really beautiful.
It's a choral arrangement. It has they're they're not even close to a vibe. So there's no, like, she copied his song or anything. It was just the words that kept inspiring me for years. Like, just those words, I touched his robe.
So out of that sad thing came this wonderful song. And so this was on on his casket, and it was one that he had written. He had written and composed. Uh-huh. That was your inspiration, and you hadn't composed anything really before this.
Is that right? No. Nothing like this. No. So how did first of all, the melody come to you and the words, which came first, and and how did how did you gain that inspiration?
I just it all I one night, I was sitting there, and I was like, I feel like I I feel like I want to write this song. And I know people say things like this, and you don't believe it that it can't it worked itself out in, like, a night or two, but it was actually true. It didn't take but a few days for me to because once I got the rhythm in my head and the chorus in my head, I was like, wait a minute. So it probably took, if at most, a week. I don't know.
It just it came to me. The words came to me. The pain of the woman and the courage and then that she was immediately healed. And it just it came to me so quickly. It was wonderful.
And now and I wrote the music, but I didn't arrange it. I had a wonderful friend in Phoenix who took me into the studio. So I had the words, and I had I could plunk it out with my right hand on the piano, but I didn't have the big arrangement. So he helped me out with that, and he was so dismayed. I don't know if you know anything about music, but I put it in, I think it was either six flats or a a ridiculous key.
Like, musicians like the key of c or f, but I put it in, like, the most difficult arrangement possible. And he did it anyway, and we recorded it in Phoenix several several years ago with my good friends. Well, it turned out beautifully. Tell me you mentioned the story about I touched his robe. What what special meaning does that have for you?
Well, I think it's true for everybody if you go forward in faith. If you just go and you say, well, he might be able to do it. I'm just gonna try it, see if it's a good party trick. I think that if you really believe that he is the savior of God and you go towards him seeking that kind of peace, and and I I I know I told you about my backstory about losing my daughter. That piece, if you reach just reach up, then so many hands will reach down and build you up.
But you have to take that step of faith. You have to say, you know what? He is who he says he is. He's the son of God, and he can heal. He can take away that pain.
And once you do that, it's like legions of angels to your aid, and it's just it's amazing. And you experienced that with some of the recent hardships that you've had. Tell us a little bit more about that. Well, in September excuse me. September twenty sixth of twenty twenty two, I, lost my daughter.
I came home, and I found her. She had hung herself. And I, so many questions after that. So many why did this happen to me, and why would god let this happen to me, and anger, and then sadness, and then confusion. Why does she have to leave us?
And it's been a a gut wrenching, soul changing experience for me. But, ironically, it's also brought me closer because I'm thinking I don't have the answers for this. And for once, I really don't have the answers for this, and so I have got to stay close to the source, the heavenly father, so that I can somehow make sense of this and get up every day and put my shoes on and brush my teeth because when we lost her, it was just, you know, just the why. Like, why would she choose to make that exit? Why did she think that it was so hard to be here that she had to go go back home before, well, before I thought she should have anyway.
Does that make sense? Oh, it's it certainly does. It's it's, while our hearts go out to you, it's it's so touching and such a such a terrible experience. I'm sure to have to go through there, but it seems like this song which you composed, I mean, oh my god, decades before this Mhmm. Was it was that a comfort to you, the message of that?
Did that come back to you? Many times. Many times. The man they called the savior turned and said, who touched me? It seemed it was impossible to serve.
Do. But as I tried to hide, he found his way right to me. His eyes were mine, and on my knees, I fell. Forgive me, Lord, my faith was stronger than my courage. I knew with just one touch I'd be made whole.
Thou art the son of god. Thy matchless power has healed me. Not just his mortal body, but my soul. Yeah. I've written two other ones since, but they're specific.
I wrote one called Home for Christmas. She she passed away in in September, and I was crazy enough to try and perform Home for Christmas at a concert. And And then I had another friend say, you know what? Let's put this on paper and make it make it something out something greater than what you did because I was just planking out cords and crying my eyes out. Yeah.
And then I also wrote one called the stone is rolled away, come and see. That's an Easter song, and I was able to do that. I don't know if you're familiar with, lamb of God. Yes. But we were able to we were the choir that were able to perform those two songs prior to to the opening of the lamb of God.
And one of those was the one that I wrote and composed called come and see. And that was also an homage a little bit to my daughter because it talked about how sad I was that she was gone, but that Christ had broken the bands of death and that we would definitely see each other again. Yeah. So when you write these songs, Melissa, do you is is it do you feel it's it's your talent that's doing this in your musical background, or do you feel there's any other source of inspiration for this? Oh, if I was left to my own devices, it would be at best mediocre.
Oh, no. There's I'm the conduit. I you know? It's coming from a source greater than me, and I just get lucky enough to figure out how to put it together. Yeah.
But, yeah, it's not I mean, heavenly heavenly father's got he's helping with all of that. It's not just me. Because if it was just me, it wouldn't touch people the way it does. I'd be like, oh, that's a pretty song, but it would lack the spiritual, you know, the spiritual meat, I guess. Yeah.
Not that element. And finally, Melissa, just let me ask you about music in general. What what is it about music that the power that it has, it's just the spoken word doesn't? I have worked in special needs classrooms for several years, and we will have kids that will not move, that will not respond to anything besides the music. We'll have those I've had some kids in wheelchairs and in just they're just not there.
And then when the music comes on, it's like a light switch just turns on, and the music reaches them in a way nothing else can. It's amazing. And it's also been documented that the same thing is true for Alzheimer's patients and dementia patients, that if you play music from their era, they they can sense it. They can feel it. And sometimes they'll become more vocal, and you actually get some conversation out of them.
It's just amazing what music can do. And I've been told many times that the music that we hear on this little planet pales in comparison to the beauty of the music that is played on the other side. And so I can't wait to be able to hear what she's come up with on the other side because instead it's just it's just nothing nothing compared to the beauty of being in that light and being in that force for good. So Oh, well Yeah. Melissa, thanks so much for talking to us about the story behind this music and your other insights on as far as faith is concerned and and music and and all of these things.
So this, has been a pleasure talking to you. I'm Jay Hildebrandt along with Melissa Shrade, and this is the classy 97 Sunday Blessings podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for listening to the Sunday Blessings podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share, subscribe, and rate the podcast.
Sunday Blessings is hosted by J Hildebrand and is a production of Riverbend Media Group. For more information or to contact the show, visit riverbendmediagroup.com.