Early Songwriting

I am a singer/songwriter/guitarist. I started writing and playing music when I was 10. I am going to be 30 in November; so I have been playing and writing for almost 20 years. Some of my earliest memories are of music. I realized that I understood music and the way songs are put together at a very young age. I always knew I wanted to write songs. I never thought that I would be a good enough singer to actually be on the radio or anything though. Some of my earliest influences were pop singers like Madonna, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston. When I was around 9 or 10, I had a nanny named Lima. She had the back of her head shaved and would wear black lipstick. She brought a videotape of Kate Bush videos to my house once and I have never been the same. She did and does have an amazing voice; but she was so completely different than any of the pop singers I would hear on the radio or see on MTV. Lima also would tape 120 minutes for me to watch when she saw how much I loved Kate Bush. She would also take me to this little record store called Secret Sounds. I was an 11 year old girl hanging out in a record store with giant posters of the Talking Heads and the Lemonheads. When I was 12 or 13, I saw the video for “Feed the Tree” by Belly. A beautiful blonde singing in the trees with her band. I somehow knew then that I could do it. Lima used to take me to shows with her. She took me to go see Belly at Toad’s Place in New Haven. I think I was 13. Her songs were somewhat pop, but different enough that she was somewhere in the middle between the ultra pop singers and Kate Bush. Belly and Kate Bush are still very important musical influences for me. I still feel really lucky that I had someone who made me “cool” at such a young age. By the time I was 13, I was also listening to Bjork, the Lemonheads, Throwing Muses, the Breeders, the Pixies and Juliana Hatfield. I was also listening to Pearl Jam and Nirvana like everyone else was; but I also knew that Kurt Cobain’s hero was Frank Black. What kind of 13 year old knew that back then? By the time I was 14, I was the girl who knew cool music. Not that I was really “cool”. But I liked it. I was ahead of my peers in that way, and I owe it all to my nanny, Lima.