It's Time to Build Something New

It’s Monday, September 22nd, 2025. For a very particular type of person, this date will ring a very particular bell: it is, of course, Hobbit Day, or Bilbo and Frodo Baggins’ birthday. Hobbits are well known for giving away gifts on their birthdays, so it always feels fitting to me to release music on this day when I’m able. Back in 2014, I released my first album, Take It Slow, on this day. In 2023, I released my arrangement of Johnny Mercer’s “Dream (When You’re Feeling Blue)” on this day. And now this year, I’ve released my newest single, an original song called “It’s Time to Build Something New”, on Monday, September 22nd. While it’s not the best release day (algorithmically speaking), it’s whimsical and true to my own sense of fun, so here we are. 

I wrote this song more than five years ago, in the earliest days of the pandemic. At 28 years old, I was just beginning to thrive in my budding career as a freelance musician. I was performing live, recording background vocals, arranging, and writing children’s music for a company called Quaver. Most of the children’s music had an SEL (Social Emotional Learning) focus, which was particularly meaningful to me as a sensitive person who values emotional intelligence. Things were great! Until they were decidedly not great. 

I don’t want to dwell on what things were like, especially because my troubles in the early days of the pandemic were so insignificant in the grand scheme of things. But before the full scale of the trouble we were all in became clear, one thing was front and center in my community: musicians were losing work. Lots of it, left and right. It was demoralizing, frustrating, scary, and costly. As someone who had just begun what felt like a really special stage of my career, I felt particularly destabilized and uncertain. To be clear–I’ll take emotional uncertainty over physical illness or danger every day of the week. But the fact remains that in early 2020, we were all facing uncharted waters, and I decided to write a children’s song about it.

When your plans fall apart, it may break your heart, but it’s time to build something new.

I went to bed last night a little bit anxious about how this song might be received. When a stranger hears this song, five years removed from its writing, they won’t know it’s “a children’s song for adults.” Will they just hear naive simplicity? Will they hear unintended political undertones? Will they think the songwriter is ignorant? As with any song released into the world, the truth is that I won’t know, and it’s not my job to control how the song is received. But for those taking the time to read this, I can share my intentions.

When your plans fall apart, it may break your heart, but it’s time to build something new.

When you’re blue, feeling low, that’s the time, don’t you know, to choose hope and build something new. 

Imagine all the ways you can make the world better!

Think of all the kindness you can share.

We can think, we can dream, we can work as a team, ‘cause it’s time to build something new…

You are brave, you are strong, and it won’t be long ‘til it’s time to build something new…

And there are so many things we can learn from you when it’s time to build something new. 

When I write children’s music for Quaver, it’s with the knowledge that the song is accompanied by a lesson. The song itself doesn’t need to nail down the mechanics of the concept, it needs to create a catchy way for the main idea to work itself into the child’s mind (and maybe even their heart). In the same way, this song isn’t meant to solve any of the world’s problems. It’s just meant to provide a little musical mantra to any of us who feel discouraged or overwhelmed by the world around us. The darkness is real, and our hearts will be broken many times along the path. I can’t help thinking of Frodo and Sam, plodding along against overwhelming odds, choosing hope–choosing to step forward–countless times along the way. The path forward will require teamwork. It will require bravery and strength. It will require both our brains and our hearts, our cooperation and our creativity. 

The song starts with a ‘1 2m 3m 4’ progression. What could be more elementary than a 1-2-3-4? As the song progresses, the chords change slightly–a little bit of complexity is added. It happens first at 0:53, on the word “team”. Later, leading up to the lyric, “You are brave,” chords are added to build the sense of urgency. Whether these changes come across to the average listener, I’m always delighted by opportunities to ‘text paint’.

In lieu of a traditional solo after the first chorus in this recording, I chose to have a ‘conversation’ with my friend Kevin Gatzke playing saxophone. Improvisation is a beautiful exercise in building something new. The improviser has to commit to saying something–not just being physically present, but actively sharing their own voice–and listening to what others are saying. You’ll hear ‘responses’ in Kevin’s playing. You’ll also hear a sophistication, a fluency in the language of jazz improvisation, in his playing that isn’t as strong in my singing. I think that’s lovely. I’m not a masterful improviser yet, but my voice is still an important part of the conversation. 

A side note on this: when a child is learning to speak, a loving parent delights in their attempts. The parent isn’t embarrassed by the child’s grammatical errors; she’s in awe of the child’s growth. While an older child (whose own grasp of language is still limited) might take pleasure in pointing out a younger child’s mistake, a loving adult never does. I see parallels in jazz: great improvisers are rarely put off by younger improvisers’ genuine attempts to ‘speak’. Harsh criticism or snark is usually employed only by those whose grasp of the language is more limited than they realize. 

Back to Monday, September 22nd, 2025. I hope no one who hears this song thinks I think I have answers. I don’t have answers. Things are much stranger and more intense and scary now than I could have imagined in 2020 when I wrote this song. I can’t help but revisit one of the most famous quotes from The Lord of the Rings:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

With my time, I choose hope, and I choose to participate in building something new.