If The Supper Club was a love letter to Song Fight!, this one’s a Dear John.

In 2024, Song Fight! Live finally came back as an in-person event, after several years away due to the COVID-19 pandemic. When I arrived in Denver, though, I felt like I was only there out of obligation, and over the course of the next few days I felt like maybe I was done with Song Fight! for so many reasons. The community was a great way for me to get started as a songwriter, but it was starting to feel like I needed to pull back a bit and not be so emotionally-invested in it.

Over the next few days I had several good conversations with close friends in the community. They didn’t make me feel much better about Song Fight! itself (and in fact helped me to put words to some of the specific things I was feeling particularly bad about), but they did make me feel better about thinking it was time for me to move on.

I so was burned out and so frustrated at this thing that had been so important to me for so long, over half of my life at this point. The other music I’d been doing – small solo performances and scoring for video games and short films – was making me much happier than this ongoing thing, this community that used to bring me such joy.

So for the live fight title of “Valley Highway,” I decided to write a swan song.

But being up on stage, performing with friends, getting the reactions from folks about how much I’ve grown over the years and how much better we’ve all become for having participated in this ridiculous thing for so long? I started to feel a lot better.

I’m still not sure I want to be quite so involved in Song Fight! anymore, but at least I feel good about the time I’ve spent with it, and it’ll probably always be there for me when I need it.

Song Fight! has been so important to me, but it’s okay to move on.

Lyrics: Valley Highway

It is time for me to go Down this newly open road I am grateful for how I have Had some of the best times of my life

Looking to the setting sun Looking out for number one Half a life is better than Having never lived a life at all Stuffed inside a letterbox Regrets and things better left unsaid

Here we are In the valley of my dreams

Time to fly Try to live up to my means

I remain so grateful for some Of the best times of my life

Under stormy desert skies Where my former passion lies Chasing down a memory of Better times and times left yet to come Fix my broken wings right up Because it’s long past time for me to fly

Here we are On the highway to my dreams

Time to fly Try to live up to my means

I remain so grateful for some Of the best times of my life

I remain forever grateful For some of the best times of my life

This song was written for Song Fight! Live 2020, and I don’t think people got the joke that it was a song about how 2020 was going to have been so much better than 2019 was.

(For those reading this from the distant future: It very much wasn’t.)

Lyrics: Better Luck Next Year

This year had its challenges All my flowers dead, my pain got worse, my brain got worse, there’s something wrong with my head

What happened to my career, it didn’t go my way Things feel bad, and I’m in fear I won’t live another day

oh, it can only get better oh, I know it will get better

we see the rise of fascists who think many lives don’t matter a president who’s on the brink, only cares to be flattered

where can our people go from here it all just seems too much famine devastation fear we need a human touch

oh, it can only get better oh, I know it will get better

but it wasn’t all so bad some of it was swell remember all the good times we had Song Fight! Live went well

We take the hand we have been dealt this year’s problems were a-plenty 2019 really smelt, so here’s to 2020

oh, it can only get better oh, I know it will get better oh, it can only get better oh, I know it will get better

Video: Better Luck Next Year