I almost didn't write this one.

Not because I didn't have anything to say. I always have something to say. I have a whole blog full of something to say. That's kind of the thing I want to talk about.

I was sitting here getting ready to write a post and I had this honest moment. Does anyone actually read these? I don't have a massive audience. Some people stumble onto this page. A few listen to a song. Maybe one or two click into the blog. And I have been writing these posts like there is a crowd out there…

Memorial Day weekend. The year is flying by. What a year it has been out there in the world, and in my own life. I have a feeling you know exactly what I mean.

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. Not the productive kind. The kind that just happens when you get quiet enough to actually hear yourself.

For a long time I was making music I thought I should be making. Styles I thought I was supposed to be in. Trying to sound like other writers. Chasing some idea of what success was supposed to look like…

It's a cool Saturday morning. The sun is coming up through gray clouds. It rained last night, which I love - good for the flowers. My dog Joey and I were just outside looking at them. And I got to thinking, the way I always do when it's quiet enough to hear myself.

I have written songs my entire life. In high school alone I wrote over 950 of them and then I stopped counting. I have no idea how many songs I've written total. Thousands, probably. I have songs I forgot I wrote. Finding them again feels like…

I have spent a long time trying to make music that other people would want. Chasing a version of success that was never really mine. Measuring the work against metrics that had nothing to do with the work itself. I thought I had a chance of making it. Whatever that means. I was trying to speak a language that wasn't my own.

Something shifted. I stopped chasing and started listening. To myself, to the music, to what was always underneath.

What I am building now is a world. Thirteen songs written, recorded…

So. I released a new single today called If We Switched Sides. It's the first of eight songs coming out every two weeks through the summer. Eight songs. I'm not playing around. Well, I am playing around, that's kind of the whole point, but you know what I mean.

Here's where I'm at. Minneapolis had a brutal winter. The cold kind and the other kind. Let me just say it plainly: I hate Trump. He is a corrupt, cruel, evil human being and I genuinely do not understand how anyone looks at what he has done to this…