Tag: singer songwriter

New Year, New Love Songs:

Announcing “Through It All”

I’ve been writing love songs for over a decade.

Songs scribbled in journals at 8 AM. Voice memos recorded in parking lots because a melody wouldn’t leave me alone. Lyrics typed into my phone while my husband Dan thought I was scrolling Instagram or TikTok Shop.

Some were about loves that didn’t last. Some were about the love that did. And some? Some were about kinds of love I didn’t even recognize as love songs until I lined them all up and looked at what I’d been writing all along.

This February, I’m releasing all of them. Sixteen love songs. Every kind of love I know.

Welcome to “Through It All”

This album is my love letter to love itself—not just the Valentine’s Day, roses-and-chocolate kind (though that’s in here too). I’m talking about the real stuff. The messy, beautiful, hilarious, heartbreaking, ordinary, extraordinary reality of loving people for the long haul.

Because here’s what I’ve learned after years of marriage, two homeschooled boys, career changes, cross-country moves, grief that knocked us flat, and joy that lifted us back up: Love isn’t just one thing. It’s everything.

It’s the first kiss that ends your search and the thousandth kiss that says “I’m still here.” It’s laughing until you cry over the “where do you want to eat” argument you’ve had four hundred times. It’s standing at three graves with your mother and understanding that love doesn’t end—it just changes shape.

The Twists and Turns of Married Life

Let me tell you something they don’t put on wedding invitations: marriage is weird. It’s wonderful and weird and sometimes you find yourself writing a song about how your husband’s beard has colonized the bathroom sink and you’re not even mad about it anymore—you’re just… impressed? Annoyed? In love? All three?

Dan and I have been through it. Job losses that made us question everything. Seasons of grief so heavy we could barely look at each other. Financial stress that kept us up at night. The exhaustion of building a life while raising two boys who have more energy than any human should legally possess.

But we’ve also been through the good stuff. Inside jokes that make no sense to anyone else. That look he gives me—you know the one, the tilted head, the soft eyes, the little grin that says “I’ve got you” without a single word. Dancing in the kitchen. Planning vacations we actually earned. Watching our boys sleep and feeling that fierce, protective love rise up so strong it almost hurts.

Love conquers all—but not in the fairy tale way. It conquers because it shows up. Day after day, argument after argument, hard season after hard season. It conquers because you choose it, even when choosing is hard. Especially when choosing is hard.

That’s what this album is about. The choosing. The staying. The laughing when you could cry. The crying when you need to. The loving through it all.

Two Songs, Two Stories: Meet the Singles

Before the full album drops in February, I’m releasing two singles—and I have to be honest with you: these are my favorites. Out of fifteen songs I love, these two hold the most tender places in my heart.

“Last First Kiss” — Coming Early January

Do you remember your last first kiss? Not your first kiss ever—your last first kiss. The one you didn’t know would be the end of searching.

I remember mine. I remember exactly where I was standing, what I was wearing, the way my heart was pounding. I had no idea that kiss would be my last first kiss. I didn’t know I was done. But looking back? That was it. That was the moment everything changed.

This song is pure nostalgic romance—the kind that makes you want to slow dance in your living room and text your person “I love you” for no reason. If you’ve found your person, this one’s for you. If you’re still looking, this one’s a promise that it’s coming.

“Dance With Me” — Coming Late January

If “Last First Kiss” is about where love begins, “Dance With Me” is about where it goes.

I wrote this one imagining Dan and me at eighty years old. Gray-haired, slower, maybe a little creaky—but still dancing. Still choosing each other. Still swaying in the kitchen to a song only we can hear.

It’s a waltz, because waltzes are timeless. It’s a promise, because marriage is daily promises. And honestly? It makes me cry every single time I sing it. The good kind of cry. The “I can’t believe I get to have this” kind.

This is the wedding song I wish I’d had at my own wedding. If you’re engaged, planning a wedding, or celebrating an anniversary—put this one on your radar.

What These Blogs Are All About

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing the stories behind every single song on this album. The real stories. The “here’s what was happening in my life when I wrote this” stories. The embarrassing ones, the heartbreaking ones, the ones that make me laugh out loud.

Because here’s the thing: I love music. I love making it. I love sharing it. I love when a song lands in someone’s ears at exactly the right moment and they think, “Wait—how did she know?”

I’m not a major label artist with a marketing team and a publicist. I’m an independent musician writing songs at my desk while my kids do math problems at the kitchen table. I’m building this one listener at a time, one share at a time, one “hey, you should hear this” at a time.

And that’s where you come in.

Share the Love (Literally)

If these songs resonate with you—if a lyric makes you think of your best friend, your spouse, your dad, your kids—share them. Text a link to your group chat. Play it at your Galentine’s party. Send it to your coworker who just got engaged. Add it to your family road trip playlist.

Music is meant to be shared. Love is meant to be shared. These songs are my gift to you, and if they mean something, I hope you’ll pass them along.

Because every time you share a song with someone, you’re saying “this made me think of you.” And isn’t that its own kind of love?

What’s on the Album

Here’s a sneak peek at all fifteen tracks—from comedy to grief, from Galentine’s anthems to lullabies:

1. Last First Kiss — The kiss that ended my search

2. Cheaper By The Bottle — Because your girlfriends ARE your valentines

3. You Get Me — Gratitude for being truly understood

4. Lucky Me — A loving roast of married life’s quirks

5. Anywhere’s Fine (But Not There) — The “where do you want to eat” anthem

6. Smile and Nod — Loving what you’ll never understand

7. Dance With Me — Growing old together, one waltz at a time

8. Through It All — Surviving the hard seasons, together

9. That Look — The silent language of long love

10. I Hope You Miss Me Sometimes — Honoring the almost-loves

11. The Ritual — My mom, three graves, and love that outlasts death

12. My Original Valentine — Dad’s chocolate rose on my nightstand

13. Safe Here — A lullaby that’s also a love song

14. Dear Younger Me — A letter to my searching self

15. We Earned This — Celebrating the joy we worked for

16. Girls, Let’s Go — Party Anthems for the Moms

Join Me on This Journey

I can’t wait to share these songs with you. I can’t wait to tell you about the night I wrote “Through It All” while crying at the kitchen table. About why “The Ritual” took me three years to finish. About the real “where do you want to eat” fight that inspired “Anywhere’s Fine.”

Subscribe, follow, bookmark—whatever you do—so you don’t miss a single story. And if you’re already excited? Leave a comment. Tell me which song title intrigues you most. Share this post with someone who needs a new love song in their life.

The love starts here.

With so much love,

Melanie

The Melanie Grace

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RELEASE SCHEDULE

January 5th: “Last First Kiss” (Single)

January 19th: “Dance With Me” (Single)

February 2nd: “Through It All” (Full Album)

December 29, 2025
Resurrection Power: How Christ’s Victory Transforms Everything We Know
• SPOTIFY • APPLE MUSIC • AMAZON MUSIC • DEEZER • PANDORA • YOUTUBE

All Things New: When Everything Changes

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

This verse is the beating heart of Christian theology. Not improvement. Not renovation. But new creation. Resurrection power working in us now.

Yet how do we experience this truth? How do we move from intellectual belief to lived reality?

The Baroque Version: “All Things New”

Picture a cathedral filling with voices. The sopranos and altos sing: “Old things have passed away.” The tenors and basses respond: “Behold, He makes all things new.”

This isn’t random dialogue. It’s theological conversation. The music itself teaches theology: voices representing different aspects of human experience all discovering the same truth. Slowly, impossibly, they come together in unity: “All things new, all things new.”

The full choir joins: “The grave could not contain Him, the stone was rolled away.” The music swells toward majesty. Resurrection isn’t just theology—it’s orchestral triumph.

This is formal affirmation of fundamental Christian truth: Christ’s resurrection power is active, present, transformative.

The Broadway Version: “Everything Is Possible Now”

The stage is darker at first. A single character stands alone: “They told me I was finished.”

But then—the turning point—”But then came the resurrection. The moment everything shifted. And we all felt it at once.”

One by one, other characters join. Not in harmony necessarily—in solidarity. Each voice added represents another person discovering transformation. By the time the full ensemble sings “Everything is possible now,” the stage is flooded with light and people.

The Broadway approach shows transformation as a journey from despair to possibility, from isolation to community. The repeated chorus—”Everything is possible now!”—becomes infectious, contagious, real.

This is resurrection theology experienced relationally: I don’t believe alone. I believe alongside others who’ve also discovered that death doesn’t have the final word.

The Singer/Songwriter Version: “I’m Starting Over”

“I’m starting over. Not from zero, not erased, but from this moment forward, something’s changed.”

The singer/songwriter doesn’t make grand claims. There’s no orchestra. Just voice and guitar. But the honesty is devastating: transformation isn’t one moment. It’s daily. It’s “small decisions, day by day. The tiny ‘yes’ to starting over again.”

The chorus—”Starting over, starting over, can’t go back to who I was before”—captures something the other versions approach differently: transformation as personal choice, as moment-by-moment surrender to newness.

This is intimate theology. Not doctrine about transformation, but lived experience of what it means to become new.

The Alternative Rock Version: “I’m Breaking Through”

An explosive voice declares: “They built a box around me, said this is who you are, stay quiet, stay small. But something in me’s waking, something in me’s breaking through the walls.”

The alternative rock approach is defiant transformation. Not gentle. Not passive. But fierce, active, reclamatory. “I’m not apologizing, I’m not shrinking down, I’m claiming back my power, I’m taking my crown.”

The song builds from contained verses to explosive chorus: “I’m breaking through! Everything that tried to break me made me strong!” The energy is cathartic, liberating, powerful.

This is resurrection theology experienced as liberation: I’m not waiting for permission. I’m not asking for approval. I’m claiming my authentic self.

The Same Truth, Four Languages

2 Corinthians 5:17 is radical: all things become new in Christ. But the experience of that newness differs:
- Baroque celebrates the majesty and theological certainty of transformation
- Broadway shows transformation as a relational, community discovery
- Singer/Songwriter honors transformation as a personal, daily practice
- Alternative Rock celebrates transformation as liberation and reclamation
What This Means for Your New Year

As you begin 2026, where do you need “all things new”?

Are there old patterns you sense God inviting you to release? Baroque theology invites you to contemplate the formal majesty of what transformation could mean.

Are there broken relationships or fractured communities you long to see healed? Broadway theology shows transformation happening together, in solidarity.

Are there daily habits or mindsets that need shifting? Singer/songwriter theology honors the small “yes” moments that accumulate into transformation.

Are there limitations you need to break through, false identities you need to shatter, authentic selves you need to reclaim? Alternative rock theology celebrates transformation as defiant liberation.

The Invitation to Newness

2 Corinthians 5:17 isn’t conditional on feeling transformed. It’s declarative: you are new creation. The work is done. What remains is for us to experience and live into that reality.

In 2026, that could mean listening to how four different artistic traditions celebrate the same resurrection power. It might mean discovering which one speaks most deeply to your particular transformation journey.

Or it might mean recognizing that transformation sounds different in each season of life—sometimes we need formal theology, sometimes relational community, sometimes intimate personal reflection, sometimes defiant liberation.

All are true. All are new. All are Christ.
December 29, 2025
Reflection and Mercy: How Doubt Meets Faith Across Four Different Genres
• SPOTIFY • APPLE MUSIC • AMAZON MUSIC • DEEZER • PANDORA • YOUTUBE

What Held Us: When Faithfulness Feels Like a Surprise

The end of one year and the beginning of another invites reflection. We look back and ask: Where was God in this year? How was He faithful? What didn’t make sense then that makes sense now?

Lamentations 3:22-23 offers a surprising answer from a surprising place: “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”

Lamentations. A book of mourning and wrestling with God. Yet here, in the midst of genuine grief and doubt, the writer discovers something radical: God’s mercy didn’t disappear. It renewed itself every single morning, even when the writer couldn’t see it.

The Baroque Version: “The Year Now Past”

In a quiet sanctuary, a single soprano voice begins. The harpsichord is sparse, almost lonely. She reflects formally on the year: swift, filled with seasons, marked by questions. “How swift the turning of the year. What goodness have we witnessed here?”

But then something shifts. Her voice gains strength. The oboe enters—not with fanfare, but with gentle accompaniment. She realizes: “His mercies never fail.” The music modulates from minor to major, from introspection to affirmation.

The baroque approach honors both the weight and the wonder. It gives time and space to sit with the difficulty (“What goodness have we witnessed?”) before arriving at the deeper truth (“His mercies are new”). This is formal theology expressed musically: the human soul wrestling with God’s nature, articulating doubt before faith.

The Broadway Version: “The Weight I’m Carrying”

Now a character steps forward on a stage. They’re tired. Real. They speak directly to the audience: “I’ve been carrying this year like a stone.”

This Broadway character doesn’t hide their struggle. They admit failures. They confess expectations unmet. But then—the turning point—they remember: “He whispers in the dark: ‘I haven’t left you.’”

The Broadway approach is relational and real. It insists that before we can celebrate faithfulness, we must name the struggle. The spoken dialogue in the middle is pure character revelation. This is theology that meets you where you are: exhausted, doubting, carrying stones. And then it invites you to lay them down.

The Singer/Songwriter Version: “Doubt’s Whisper”

“I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” These opening lines are pure singer/songwriter honesty. The artist admits: I don’t know if I believe half of what I claim. I doubt. Deeply.

With minimal accompaniment, just voice and guitar, the song unfolds like a late-night confession. There are doubts. Big ones. The year was hard. But then—and this is where the magic happens—the artist hears a whisper: “Your doubts don’t disqualify you.”

The singer/songwriter approach to Lamentations 3:22-23 refuses to pretend faith is simple. It honors the complexity: doubt and faith coexisting. Questions and trust in the same breath. The repeated realization—”Mercies, I’m learning about mercies”—becomes almost a mantra. A permission slip to acknowledge struggle while also acknowledging love.

The Alternative Rock Version: “What Held Me”

An ethereal yet powerful voice opens quietly: “In the darkness, there was something. I couldn’t name it, couldn’t see it, but it held me, held me, held me.”

The alternative rock approach is defiant introspection. The year was brutal. The breaking was real. “My mind was breaking, my heart was shaking, everything I built was crumbling to dust.”

But then: “Morning came again, and it was fresh, like the darkness never happened.” The song builds from sparse vulnerability to fuller power. The repeated refrain—”What held me? What held me?”—is a question being asked with increasing certainty. Something did hold. Something is real.

The alternative rock approach honors both the weight of the year and the mysterious grace that sustained through it. It’s ethereal because grace is hard to explain. It’s powerful because surviving requires strength.

The Same Truth, Four Languages

All four versions articulate the same truth: even in difficulty, even in doubt, God’s mercy is real and renewed. But they reach different listeners:
- Baroque speaks to those who need formal, theological beauty to process their year
- Broadway speaks to those who need relational honesty and character-driven storytelling
- Singer/Songwriter speaks to those who need to feel personally known in their specific struggle
- Alternative Rock speaks to those who need to acknowledge the battle while also acknowledging the mysterious grace that sustained them
What This Means for Your Reflection

As you close this year and open the next, Lamentations 3 asks: Have you noticed God’s faithfulness?

Not in the big, obvious ways necessarily. But in the morning mercies? In the fact that despite doubt, you’re still here? Still believing, even if it’s “just barely”?

Perhaps the baroque version invites you into contemplative review—formally acknowledging both the weight and wonder.

Perhaps the Broadway version invites you to name your struggle honestly before celebrating God’s faithfulness.

Perhaps the singer/songwriter version invites you to admit that doubt and faith coexist, and both are welcome.

Perhaps the alternative rock version invites you to acknowledge the battle while also acknowledging the mystery of grace that held you.

The Mercy That Never Ends

Lamentations teaches us something counterintuitive: the book of deepest grief contains one of the Bible’s brightest affirmations of God’s faithfulness. The darkest book of Scripture proclaims one of its brightest truths.

Your year—with all its difficulty, doubt, and complexity—is held in that same reality. God’s mercies are new. Not because everything went well. But because He is faithful, regardless.
December 28, 2025
New Single – Release Coming

February 6, 2025
Behind the Song Part 1

Behind the Song: Magic of Santa

Now Streaming EVERYWHERE!

I set out to write a song about Santa and his magic. My coworker, Krystal, at the time told me that if I wrote a song called Santa’s Magic it sounded dirty. I was shocked, and appalled and immediately agreed. So later that day I came home from work and sat on my couch with my guitar. Within 30 minutes I had the song called, Magic of Santa. What may surprise you, is I wrote this song in 2017!!!! Why did it take 4 years to release it? Great question. I wanted to give this song justice and I wanted to have a studio recording of it, not my home computer and closet “studio” of my <$100 microphone.

So in 2019 I set out to become debt free! As of October 2021 – my only debt is my mortgage!!!! WOOHOO. All that money that I was using to pay off my debt, I was able to afford a studio recording with a professional engineer.

I love Santa and, yes I still believe!

Thank you for listening! Are you interested in learning more about my crazy life and all the things that make me uniquely me? SUBSCRIBE to my email list!

December 20, 2021