These are lyrics from my song called, “October.” It’s the month I was born, and it’s my favorite spooky season. That song, and others on the album talk about getting older, nostalgia, and changing with the seasons of life.

I didn’t realize how much those lyrics would represent at the time, or that I had written the title of my future album.

The word “birth” encapsulates so much of the album as a whole.

I’ve attended hundreds of actual “birth” days as a doula while I was simultaneously trying to find my way as a songwriter. Through the process of sharing myself both here on “Musicstack”, and through my songs, those two parts of myself have stopped feeling so separate. Then after witnessing so many others give birth, I eventually became a mother myself.

Serendipitously, the first single from this record, “Supposed To Be” is coming out the day after my son’s first birthday. This wasn’t intentional, but the timing of it feels even more meaningful now.

Then there’s the word, “tears”, which can be read more than one way:

tears of sadness
tears of joy
the physical tears of birth.

Tears mean you are opening up, which is another song on the album. I also wrote a song about being a doula, my pregnancy, and one about the grief of postpartum.

This album is another kind of birth for me. Some songs were written years ago, some more recently, and some were rediscovered through old voice memos and fragments.

The first song I’m releasing from the album even goes, “I cried my eyes on my 30th birthday”, to be so literal again.

So, there’s some “Birthday Tears” for ya.

And that’s how I ended up naming my album.

My first single, “Supposed To Be” is out September 3, 2026!

Another way you can help support my upcoming album is by buying me a coffee :)

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The last few songs of the twelve that will be included on this project that has been years in the making. It felt daunting to see the files sitting there, waiting to be clicked on. I held my breath and pressed “play”.

It takes a few listens to quiet my inner critic when hearing the songs for the first time. I like to listen on a few different speakers, my headphones, the Sonos speakers in our house, and in the car, before giving any feedback to the engineer.

After I listened through the final tracks, I had a funny thought:

What happens after you finish a record?

There was a time when I accepted that this album would never actually come to fruition. When I initially got into the studio, I recorded the first 3 songs, but then life happened. My expenses piled up, I was exhausted from working nights, I wasn’t picking up my guitar as much, and those songs sat for a while, untouched.

When I finally got back into the studio, my whole life was different. I was in love, I had moved, and I was pregnant with my first baby. And suddenly, I had a lot to say. I wrote new songs, uncovered old ones through voice memos in my phone, and started telling the story of my life over the last several years living in Los Angeles.

And now it’s done. I did it.

The focus is changing from making to releasing. I’m in the third trimester with this album-baby and soon I’ll be opening up, sharing these songs, and letting people hear it. It’s a different kind of vulnerability.

I’m transitioning from the inward process of songwriting and recording, to the outward process of releasing.

So what now?

I still have to paint the cover art for the third single, and for the official album cover. There’s the uploading process of adding these songs to various platforms to be shared, and outreach to music blogs, reviewers, and interviewers as a part of the promotional campaign. It takes a different type of muscle to put myself out there, but that’s what I wanted to start doing with this Substack from the get go.

I’m going to enjoy this part, let these songs live for a while, and spend some more time with them before immediately moving on to the next project.

The album is finished, but not reeeeally.

It still has to leave my headphones, my living room, my car, and become something that exists outside of me. Something that exists with YOU, the listener.

I’m not sure what that’s going to be like, but that’s not something I need to control.

I made the record.

Now I get to let it go.

My first single, “Supposed To Be” will be out on September 3rd, 2026. One day after my child’s 1st Birthday.

One way you can support my album is to buy me a coffee!

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It’s got me thinking a lot about this feeling in relation to songwriting and the pressure to always be creating, writing, posting, recording, promoting, networking, creating content… it’s A LOT. And honestly, it’s too much.

It’s easy to mistake activity for creativity.

Songs come from actually living life. I couldn’t have written half the songs on this album if all I did was sit in my room writing a hundred songs just to get one good one. I write my best songs when I’m writing about something I actually care about, something I’ve experienced, something that’s happening in my life.

I wrote “Petra” at a postpartum doula shift when I discovered a dulcimer while taking care of my client’s baby.

I wrote “City Tree” because I heard my partner complaining about the tree outside of our house that no one could take responsibility for maintaining.

I wrote “Blink” in tears while thinking about my past family members guiding me through my very unexpected pregnancy. It was the only song I wrote while I was pregnant.

I wrote “Don’t Get To Say Goodbye” while newly postpartum with my baby rolling around on the mat in front of me.

None of these songs were written because I decided it was time to write a song. They came from paying attention to what was happening within me and around me. The music was there because I was present in my life.

Sometimes you have to stop making things, to make things. Like the breath taken between lyrics, the spaces matter.

I’m now in the process of listening to the final mixes and masters of the songs I’ve written for this album. It’s amazing how some moments I thought were detours from my music, were actually these songs coming to life all along.

The album is almost finished. I’m taking the breaths in between, and listening to what wants to be revealed next.

Now that the album is fully recorded, we’ve moved straight into the mixing and mastering stage of this project.

I’ve been working with a close friend of mine, ESTICO, to engineer this process for me, starting with my first single from this album, “supposed to be”.

When it came time to finalize the master, I had him send me two versions: one with a wetter vocal and one with a drier sound. I found myself simultaneously enjoying the process and feeling a self-imposed pressure to make the “right” decision.

In the end, I chose the wetter version. It sounds like I’m performing in a room where the lyrics bounce off the walls. The reverb creates a sense of space that feels true to the emotional tone of the song and the album as a whole.

The next step was creating the artwork.

I decided to paint it myself with watercolor.

For anyone considering the same approach, here’s my completely unofficial guide:

Step 1: Make art and love it.

Step 2: Second-guess yourself and try to change it.

Step 3: Overdo it and ruin everything.

Step 4: Go back to the original idea.

Here is what I came up with:

Overall, I continue to learn more about myself through the creation of this music. Every decision, from choosing a vocal treatment to painting an album cover, seems to bring me back to the same lesson.

I’m learning to ask myself what I actually want.

I’m learning to let go of what I think things should be.

And I’m learning to release myself from imaginary timelines, perfectionism, and the urge to force things before they’re ready.

If you enjoyed this article, you can also support my album by buying me a coffee :)

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I’m currently writing this article with my eyes closed. Stream of consciousness. I’m in my feels today. Scared. Questioning. Sad.

I hurt my back pretty badly exercising last week and it’s been a real drag.

On the bright side, I just got back the first proper mix of my song, “Supposed To Be”, which will be the first single off of my upcoming album. Whatever feedback I give for this mix will determine the sound direction for the rest of the songs and as usual, I am thinking way too deeply about it.

But I keep coming back to the lyrics of that song, and the everlasting question, “am I where I’m supposed to be?”

Can I trust in life to guide me?

Can I honor my fears and choose love instead?

I hope so.

A major insecurity of mine is that I’m not enough.

And in certain ways, that might be true. I can accept that today.

And in many ways I am doing all that I can, with all that I’ve ever learned while balancing being a new mom, going through identity shifts, re-evaluating my career path, and caring for my relationship.

There is a term I heard recently, called matrescence. It’s the profound emotional, psychological shift of becoming a mother. Changes in the brain, body, and social structure mimic a transition similar to adolescence.

I think that’s been happening to me.

I think I’m doing a good job. And, also, I’m not.

That’s okay.

I guess I share all this because I really didn’t have a topic to write about today, and this is where I’m at.

I’m so grateful for the support of my community, my friends, and my partner, who has been giving his whole heart to me.

I’m grateful for MusicStack, and the community of other artists, musicians, poets, writers, and thinkers I’ve connected with on this platform.

Thank you for reading this, and for coming along on this journey with me.

with love,

Becca

I got into the studio with my guitar on my lap, and began to play and sing the first song along to a click track in my headphones to keep perfect time. Usually, this step makes it easier in the editing process of production when it comes to comping together different takes of the songs, or adding overdubs to the recordings.

The problem was, I was no longer playing freely, expressing my emotions through the song, or swept up in the story I was telling. Instead, I was overly focused on the click, afraid to make a mistake, and obsessing over getting it “right”.

I quickly realized this process wasn’t working for me. I dumped the metronome, and didn’t welcome it back for any of the other songs we recorded.

In a music industry where perfection is often the main goal, that might sound like a strange choice. But for this album, it felt like the only honest one.

When I listen to my favorite records, the moments that move me most are rarely flawless. It’s the breaths between phrases, the sliding of fingers on guitar strings, the slight rushing or dragging of the tempo. The imperfections leave me feeling connected to artist as a human being navigating the ever-changing seasons of life.

There were plenty of moments in the studio when my inner critic wanted to take over.

Funny mouth noises.

A phrase that rushed slightly ahead.

A note that was slightly out of tune.

For years I would have tried to fix those things.

This time, I tried listening instead.

When we recorded my song, “City Tree”, it was quite newly written and I hadn’t ironed out all of the phrasing and format of the song. Because of this, I really came to love the raw emotion that poured out through the recording and we kept the second take.

When recording “Opening”, we accidentally discovered a mystery drone sound that snuck into the recording. The ghost frequency was in the exact key of the song, and we didn’t know what created it.

When we sang the group vocals on “Singing Again”, the voices were out of tune, and somehow it brought a realness to the final recording.

As artificial intelligence becomes more capable of generating music, I’ve found myself thinking even more about what makes human art meaningful.

For me, it isn’t perfection.

It’s presence.

It’s feeling the emotion underneath the performance.

It’s leaving the mistakes in.

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I’m going to keep this post short and let the song and lyrics speak for themselves:

Lyrics:

verse 1:

She smells like summertime

South Carolina

swimming pools and tea parties

now I have to remind her what it was like

Chorus:

We’re running out of time

We’re running out of time

but at the end of the day

I hope she’d say

It’s been a good good life

verse 2:

Her soft skin

she holds me in

I could sleep for hours

She is mine

and I am her

beautiful girl

she calls me

and it makes me cry

Chorus:

We’re running out of time

We’re running out of time

but at the end of the day

I hope she’d say

It’s been a good good life

Bridge:

She’s running through me

She’s running through me

She’s running through me

She’s running through me

She’s running through me

Chorus:

We’re running out of time

We’re running out of time

but at the end of the day

I hope she’d say

It’s been a good good life

I’m thinking it could be special to record an acoustic version of this song to release for an extended version of my upcoming album.

If you have memories of summer that are attached to missing a love one, I hope this song speaks to you.

If you enjoyed this song, I’d love it if you bought me a coffee :)

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As time went on, I started to feel like things weren’t falling into place as quickly as I’d imagined. I didn’t know exactly what this project wanted to be. But after a lot of changes occurred in my life- a move, a new relationship, and a baby…I decided to keep going.

Now I’m happy to say that we’ve fully recorded 12 songs for my very first full-length album.

Last Saturday was our final day of recording at MooseCat studios.

There is still plenty of work ahead. The songs need to be mixed, mastered, and eventually released into the world. But every song on the album exists.

Starting out, we added some soft percussion to the album version of my song, “October”. At one point, a tiny spider even crawled while we were recording which I felt was serendipitously spooky for a song that references Halloween.

Next, we added a simple kick and snare to “Singing Again.” Mike and I sat in chairs and recorded stomps and claps to go with it. Neither of us are drummers so we tried to keep things creative without venturing too far above our skill level.

For the first time, Mike and I listened through the entire record from beginning to end, making notes for mixing. Hearing the songs together reminded me that the album is telling a story that is bigger than anyone song can tell on it’s own.

From finding my footing in Los Angeles, pursuing music, and working as a doula, to finding love, becoming a mother, and finding my voice again, these songs have become a way of documenting this chapter of my life.

The final thing we recorded were group vocals on “Singing Again.”

Honestly, I was worried that nobody would show up after a couple people dropped out at the last minute.

Instead, some of my closest friends came. Ray was there. Ziggy was there. Even Mike joined in.

We sang the part several times, stacking the vocals until it sounded like a much bigger crowd.

Listening back, I realized that it wasn’t really about creating the illusion of a choir. It was about capturing the community that has surrounded this season of my life.

As I drove home from the studio, I felt a mix of excitement, gratitude, and disbelief. These songs have been with me for years in notebooks, voice memos, and late-night writing sessions. Now they exist as a complete body of work.

Ray and I celebrated when we got home with some cocktails, pizza, and an outdoor movie night on the projector.

The recording process may be finished, but the journey of this album is just beginning.

Next comes the mixing!

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What’s a song you’ve listened to for years, and still never get tired of?

People shared songs that have stayed with them for decades, songs that uplifted their spirits, and brought comfort and a sense of nostalgia. Some mentioned classics, deep cuts, and songs I’d never heard before!

As I read through the comments, I became less interested in which songs people chose, and more interested in why certain songs stay with us.

More Than a Song

The longer I make music, the more I’m learning that the songs we connect with the most aren’t always the ones that we consider objectively, “the best”. This soothes my little songwriter soul.

The songs that mean the most are often tied to a memory.

A first love.
A difficult season.
A person we’ve lost.

The song becomes attached to a version of ourselves. Maybe a younger version, or a happier version, or to a place we can’t travel back to other than through the portal of music.

Every time we hear it, we are transported back to that place.

As I read through the responses, I noticed that very few people chose the same song. There wasn’t a clear winner. In fact, the answers stretched across genres, decades, and generations. Joni Mitchell, Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, and Peter Gabriel were mentioned more than once, but almost everyone had their own unique choice.

What they shared wasn’t a favorite song so much as a favorite relationship with a song.

wrote about performing Bettye Swann’s “Make Me Yours” as a 14 year old before she’d ever had a boyfriend or even her first kiss. shared that the songs she returns to most are the ones composed by her son during his short life. loves Steely Dan’s “Deacon Blues” so much that she named her golden retriever after it.

Reading these responses reminded me that music becomes woven into the story of our lives. A song can hold an entire chapter of who we were.

The Songs Change Because We Change

Another thing I noticed is that many people described returning to the same song over and over for years, even decades.

The song itself stays the same, but we change.

A lyric that meant one thing at twenty can mean something entirely different at forty. Sometimes we discover a new layer of meaning because of something we’ve lived through.

As I’ve been finishing my album, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes music endure. Every songwriter dreams of writing a song that people will listen to for years, but reading these responses reminded me that longevity isn’t measured in streams or charts.

It’s measured in connection.

It’s measured in someone carrying a song with them through heartbreak, joy grief, friendship, parenthood, or simply the passage of time.

Maybe that’s why these songs matters so much. They’re like old friends from home. We return to them again and again, and each time they greet us with a familiar face. They hold memories of who we once were while accompanying us into new versions of ourselves.

Thank you to everyone who shared a song. I’ve started building the playlist below from your recommendations and have already discovered a few new favorites. More than that, I’ve loved reading the stories behind them.

Keep sharing them with me. I’m listening :)

The Hotel Cafe is neither a hotel, nor a cafe, but a dimly lit music venue with a bright red curtain draped behind the Main Stage, where local singer-songwriters and icons alike have shared their music. A smaller Second Stage lives in the room next door, providing an even more intimate musical experience. For many years, it was one of the places that made me feel like I belonged in Los Angeles.

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I can feel my own heart thumping as I check the tuning on my guitar for the third time. It’s my turn to play next. The stage is surprisingly small, and I have to be careful not to step on any cords as I approach the microphone. The lights shine so brightly that all I can see beyond them is darkness.

I take a breath, and begin to play:

Recently, I learned that The Hotel Cafe will be closing the doors to its original location on Cahuenga Blvd. to a new venue in 2027. The news sent me back through years of late night sets, songwriter rounds, showcases, and countless evenings spent listening to other artists share pieces of themselves from that tiny stage.

More than a venue, The Hotel Cafe has been a musical community.

I’m thinking fondly of the rooms that hold our songs. Safe places to play something new, experiment, take risks, and open our hearts. From recording studios, to living rooms, coffee shops, and bars, The Hotel Cafe has been one of those places for me over the years.

The last time I played there, I was newly pregnant, and nobody knew. I stepped onto that stage carrying a secret that would soon change every part of my life. That night, I played three songs at Lucas Flood’s “Not Another Showcase,” a weekly Tuesday event. The engineer, Kevin Rogers, offered to record my set, and I went home with a new EP, Live at the Hotel Cafe.

Two of the three songs I played that evening will be on my upcoming album. Listening back now feels different than it did then. Those recordings hold a version of me standing at the edge of a transformation I couldn’t yet see. They also hold the sound of The Hotel Cafe as it exists today, captured in time.

The Hotel Cafe made me feel like I belonged among the singer-songwriters, musicians, and independent artists of Los Angeles. Whether I was performing, listening from the audience, or mingling with friends between sets, I always left inspired. The venue may be changing, but the songs will carry those rooms with them.

I know mine will.

You can listen to the full Becca Roth Live at The Hotel Cafe EP on Spotify:

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I’ve been listening to each of the recordings and rearranging the order of how I think they should go according to the story this album is telling.

As a thank you for supporting this project, I wanted to share the track list with you first. I’ve included a small description of the song and a lyric from each one:

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During the session, I realized I am finally content with the collection of songs we’ve recorded.

The album feels like a complete story. It’s the story of my years living in Los Angeles, pursuing music, becoming a doula, being alone and then finding love, getting pregnant, giving birth, navigating postpartum, and eventually finding my voice again. All of these versions of myself have found their way into the songs.

Sometimes I compare myself to other musicians I see online, or to people I perceive as more successful. I still find myself asking the question that inspired one of the first songs on this record: Am I where I’m supposed to be?

But when I look back on the past several years, the hurdles I’ve overcome, and the songs that have been born along the way, I can see that every chapter belongs here. I needed that time to transform into this version of myself. I needed that time to make this record.

One of my favorite surprises has been how much the voice memo series has influenced the record itself. Both “Opening” and “Petra” found their way back to me through revisiting old recordings and sharing them with paid subscribers. Before officially recording “Petra”, we created an alternate version of “Opening” that will flow directly into it on the album.

To deepen the connection of the two songs, we added a subtle sample of Marilyn Harris singing, “I am feeling very open,” from the Birth Story documentary I wrote about in my recent article on birth work and songwriting. We also layered vocal harmonies onto several songs and even tucked a tiny recording of my baby, Ziggy, babbling.

By the end of the session, Mike and I listened through everything we’d recorded and realized we may be able to finish recording this entire album in one more session!

There is still work to do. We need to finalized the sequence of songs, finish a few details, and begin preparing for release. But for the first time, I can clearly see the shape of the record. After carrying these songs with me through so many seasons of life, they are finally beginning to stand together as one story.

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My previously released music is streaming now on Spotify:

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There is a portal where songs, and babies both come from.

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In labor, there is something called the fear-tension-pain cycle. Fears creates a lack of safety in the mind, which signals the body to tense up, rather than soften and open in the way it needs to for a baby to enter this realm. As a result, pain often intensifies throughout the process.

This doesn’t mean transformation is meant to be easy. As the word, “labor” implies, it is hard and intense work, even for someone who is fearless. But there is something about surrendering to the unknown that allows whatever is meant to come through, to come through.

Songs seem to ask for the same kind of surrender.

Birth work has taught me so many powerful lessons that have shaped my songwriting. First of all, force rarely creates openness. There are times when I grip tightly to my ideas and desires rather than allowing the song to move through me. Sometimes there are many drafts before I understand what is wanting to be said, or sung. Likewise, in birth, things often go differently than planned. There is usually something deeper happening that is deciding the course of how a baby will move through.

If I overthink lyrics, or judge a song before it fully takes form, I enter my own fear-tension-pain cycle.

The more I let go, the more honest the music becomes.

I think this is part of why I’ve approached recording this album differently than I have in the past. I used to let my inner critic control the recording process, wanting every note perfectly in tune and in time. This record has asked for a different kind of trust from me. I’ve leaned into intuition, surrendered to imperfect timing, and welcomed mistakes.

Creativity, like birth, cannot be fully controlled. It can only be supported and witnessed as it unfolds.

I’ve experienced transformation through witnessing countless births, and now through becoming a mother myself. For a long time, I felt split between worlds when it came to my identity as a doula and my identity as a singer-songwriter. But now I see how I can integrate all of myself, and the lessons I’ve learned through birth work into this record.

There is a portal where songs and babies both come from. Instead of fearing uncertainty, I am learning to trust the music that emerges in it’s own time.

I am opening into the unknown, and finding my way there.

If you’ve been following the journey of this record, you know that I recently recorded an intro song to my album titled, “Opening”. It was half inspired by another song about this concept that I learned from a documentary called “Birth Story” about a birthing community called The Farm, in Nashville, TN. A resident of the community, Marilyn Harris sang this song for a woman to open up during labor. I never could find who the original songwriter is, but I did uncover the rest of the lyrics from a comment on YouTube:

I am feeling very open
Like a flower in the morn
Let my petals open
Let my child be born

I am feeling very open
This is my birthing song
Let my body open
To my arms where you belong

I am feeling very open
Rushes come like the tide
My body it will open
Just as the ocean’s wide

I am feeling very open
My breath is heavy with sighs
As my body opens
At the meeting of my thighs

I am feeling very open
I’m breathing with the tune
Let my body open
We will be meeting soon

I am feeling very open
Let my body stretch and yawn
Watch my body open
And meet my baby before dawn/long

I am feeling very open
My body knows how to birth
As my body opens
Another one joins the earth

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My previously released music is available wherever music is streamed.
Listen here on Spotify:

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I’ve been pondering what kind of song to write on the dulcimer that my uncle built for me. As I was looking through my voice memos this week, I found a song I started writing at a postpartum shift I was working a few years ago. I discovered a dulcimer at my clients house and came up this tune while the baby, “Petra” was cooing and playing:

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I never expected the first song from my voice memo series to become the introduction to the album, but that was the song we ended up recording. The song, “Opening”, feels like a perfect beginning for this journey, and the birth of the record itself.

After a few takes, my engineer, Mike pointed out an angelic high-pitched drone humming in the background. We never figured out where the mystery frequency was coming from, but Mike said he felt like we were “ghost hunters” as he captured the sound on a microphone so we could weave it into the track.

I brought along the dulcimer that my uncle built for me, and we decided to record it on the song as well. It worked out perfectly, as the song is played in open D tuning on the guitar, and a dulcimer is traditionally tuned to DAD. Together, the instruments created a resonance that seemed to fill every corner of the song.

We also layered background vocals onto this track and a few others, including, “Don’t Get to Say Goodbye”, and “October”. Mike described the “oohs” I sang in “October” as “little Halloween angels”.

I am loving the way imperfections are shaping this record. Little accidents, ghost frequencies, and songs played out of time somehow make perfect sense for what this project is becoming. It feels like the songs and the story are revealing themselves along the way, without force.

Some of my favorite moments on this record so far have been the ones that were never planned.

You can find some of my previously released music on Spotify and wherever you stream music

Becca Roth on Spotify

If you enjoyed this post, I’d love it if you bought me a coffee! I’m currently sitting at my favorite coffee shop sipping a cappuccino as I type this :)

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