What Inspired Sad Brown Eyes?

Songwriters want to leave a certain amount of their music open to interpretation, but especially in songs about relationship and trying to navigate through all of the grey area, it can be really important to reveal the specific inspiration.

Like, in this case, I wrote Sad Brown Eyes when I was 17, and I was definately initiated into the ol’ “You can save a troubled man by loving him hard enough” school of thought.

When I started playing this song again as an adult, however, I realized that teenage me was processing her frustration and sense of helplessness in her changing relationship with her father (who was struggling with his depression at the time)

And that’s the complicated thing about relationships, isn’t it?

That we’re in them with other humans, with their own baggage and demons and wounds. Even when everyone is doing their best, it doesn’t mean that everyone gets out unscathed.

All we can do is continue to be brave enough to open ourselves back up to community and connectedness (not indiscriminately - wisely, with people who can return it)