“I want my daughter to see me write in the early morning hours. I want my son to remember the way I loved to go for hikes alone in the woods. I want them to see me in all my identities and interests and facets: sister, writer, friend, reader, wife, coffee drinker.

And so I choose to be more than a mother. I choose the expansive, bigger, more inconvenient life. Because I believe it makes me a better person. Which in turn, helps me become the kind of mother I want to be: joyful, present, loving, but most of all: alive.” —Jillian Stacia

I was scrolling through photos on my phone, hunting for one image in particular (see below), when I stumbled on a screenshot of the Jillian Stacia quote above.

I was looking for this photo because when I think about trying to make music and be a mom, it always comes to mind.

It’s a sweet photo! That’s Sadie, with a little ukulele. I think Andrew snapped this on film— it’s morning, we’re in our jammies, the house is a mess and I can actually feel that I haven’t brushed my teeth. Based on Sadie’s age, Iris was probably army-crawling around somewhere off-camera. But it’s a really sweet moment.

However, trying to make art while being a mother has generally not been full of sweet moments. It’s been sour. Deeply frustrating. Hard as hell.

Stumbling upon that quote when I was looking for this photo and wanting to write about trying to carve out a creative life while being a mother— it felt like a wink or a nod of some sort.

“And so I choose to be more than a mother [italics mine]. I choose the expansive, bigger, more inconvenient life. Because I believe it makes me a better person. Which in turn, helps me become the kind of mother I want to be: joyful, present, loving, but most of all: alive.”

Without having read this quote, what I’m writing today could have easily started (and ended) as a grumpy, resentful tirade— a very familiar place for me, indeed. Instead, Jillian’s words reoriented me away from the helpless, black/white place I was stewing in, and towards a more complex truth: neither art nor motherhood is fucking convenient.

Trying to live a creative life while also raising kids often takes me into my favorite psychic terrain — the well-worn unconscious belief that “if I choose myself, someone suffers.” Or, in its more dramatic form: choosing my life means the sacrifice of someone else’s.

Ugh. I can feel my family’s intergenerational trauma singing its siren song. I’ve known these lyrics since before I was born— they can still captivate me if I’m not paying attention.

At some point in the past decade or so, I took on the belief that wanting to create — to write and perform and record songs, in my case — didn’t square with being a good mother. Not consciously, of course. Consciously, I’ve always believed women deserve full, expansive, wildly beautiful lives! I’m a fucking feminist, after all! Smash the patriarchy! Up with Matriarchy! Etc, etc.

But that theory hasn’t held up in my practice of living. In these last years, as I’ve wrestled again and again with the resistance of taking up time and space in my family… in all contexts, really, not just in the context of creativity. And, as life does, the discomfort and frustration have pushed me to confront something inside of myself. Something putrid and embarrassing and decidedly not feminist.

I’ve had to face that I am not as edgy and transgressive as I like to think. Rather, it’s as if I have a tradwife living inside of me who still believes that a good mother devotes her entire life to her children; that anything which pulls me toward a world that doesn’t really include my kids is, at minimum, selfish, and at maximum, going to perpetrate the harm that I’m working very hard to avoid in this generation.

So I think I’ve just been waiting. Waiting for them to get older and for their needs to be less demanding, for the schedule to open up, for the guilt to finally go away on its own, for conditions to line up in support of this dream, this delight, this joy, this respite. This thing that makes me feel very, very alive.

I’ve been waiting for someone to come relieve me of my guilt and carve out some space and time for me. “Here, darling. Here’s a quiet room of your own, a guitar, some fresh pens and days of unfettered time to lollygag, and commune with the universe, and enjoy your creative process! Everyone else will be fine; you deserve this!”

Well, that person hasn’t shown up yet. And unsurprisingly, the kids keep needing things, my calendar and inbox keep overwhelming me, and my guilt keeps showing up, ever evolving like a COVID-19 variant circa 2021.

But maybe this is where the unknowable high magic of creation comes in.

A few years ago I wrote a song called pretty quiet small. The last verse references the Sleeping Beauty myth, and points to the idea that no one is coming to save her—she’s actually the only one who can break the spell.

I’ve heard it said that songs are spells. I heard it on Instagram, but I still think it’s probably true.

Maybe this is the magic of allowing something to come to life through you— what creation means to me. Maybe that song found my body to be a good host for what it wanted to communicate. I gave it life— I translated the song’s energy into lyrics and a melody and some chords— and maybe it gave me life in return. Maybe the song moved through me and infiltrated the deepest minerals in my bones with its message.

Maybe if you sing, “Only my own kiss can break this spell” enough times, you start to get it. You start to really, really get it.

Because this past year I started making an album — my first full-length one in seventeen years.

We started recording on my birthday last December, and now it’s almost done.

It’s so beautiful I could cry, and I often do. I cried a lot in the studio. pretty quiet small was the first song we recorded, and as I lay on the floor listening to the playback, crying, the word “finally” reverberated through my body, over and over and over.

I don’t have a tidy lesson to offer here, but I know that waiting is not the answer. I know that no one is coming to give me permission, a quiet room, a clear calendar. I know that the kiss that breaks the spell is mine to give myself, over and over, probably for the rest of my life, because the guilt doesn't seem to be going anywhere and neither do the dishes.

I choose the expansive, bigger, more inconvenient life, because finally is a word I want to keep saying, and the only way to keep saying it is to keep choosing it, even with the guilt, on purpose. And as hard as it is for my inner tradwife and the singer of my family’s intergenerational song to believe, I suspect the spell is already breaking. Finally.

Hi everyone,

I keep opening the Kickstarter page and staring at it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/banshees/help-me-make-my-new-record-banshees

Holy crap!

We’re so close to the original $5,000 goal, and I don’t totally have the right language for what that feels like. It’s some mix of surprise, relief (public humiliation avoided, thank you), and that slightly weepy feeling of being held up by other people in a way that feels both really good and a little bit embarrassing.

I feel so genuinely honored and grateful. Because of you, I get to finish this record with a sense of ease instead of that low-grade, background panic of how am I going to pull this off?

And not, you know, dipping into my daughters’ college fund (I’M KIDDING. Jeez.)

There’s something about this whole process that is so moving to me. It is not lost on me that when you pledge your support on Kickstarter, you are raising your hand and saying, yes, this should exist. Your record should exist.

I am so incredibly grateful.

Since there are still 10 days left, I’m going to do the slightly uncomfortable thing and name a stretch goal: $7,500.

That number would cover more of the actual costs of making the album, and take some of the edge off what has been, if I’m being honest, a pretty big personal leap.

I you’ve been meaning to pledge, or thinking about sharing it with someone who still believes in music made by actual humans (hi, I love you), this is a really beautiful moment to do that.

I don’t take any of this lightly. Thank you so, so much for helping me bring these songs into the world in the most beautiful way I can.

I can’t wait for you to hear it!

With love,
Meghan

please check it out and share if you can :)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/banshees/help-me-make-my-new-record-banshees

I spent my birthday last December in the studio at Rancho Jonata in Buellton, CA with the amazing Omar Velasco at the console. Thinking I was just going in to record a song or two and see how it felt, by the end of the day, I was crying with joy and had decided that we would make full-length record, although I didn’t exactly know how it would get paid for. Details!

I’m making a record!

It still feels surreal to say that out loud, because these songs, and even my identity as a musician, have just been waiting around while I tend to mom stuff and business-owner stuff and all the other stuff.

It’s taken me a long time to get here, and I’m very excited to give these songs a life, and to step back into the idea that I am, in fact, a musician and a singer/songwriter, even if I’m a little…out of practice.

So far, I have eight songs in various states of done-ness, and I’m really, really happy with how they’re sounding. Omar is not only a stellar producer, but he’s been earning his keep playing guitar, bass, keys and harmonium, for god’s sake. We’ve also recruited Austin Beede and Justin Flint on drums, and Aaron Embry has lent his genius on piano and organ. It’s sounding so good! Aaand people need to get paid.

Swallowing the waves of nausea that come with asking people for money, I’ve launched a Kickstarter campaign to ask for support in finishing the record, and I think I have some fun “rewards” for helping.

If you’ve ever connected with my music or just believe in supporting artists directly, this is a really meaningful way to help bring the record to life.

Here’s the Kickstarter link if you want to take a look:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/banshees/help-me-make-my-new-record-banshees

There’s no pressure at all, but I would be incredibly grateful for any support you have to offer, even if it’s just sharing it with someone who might be interested.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love, Meghan

About this song:

I love this song.

When I met Andrew, I stopped playing music for a long time. He thought it was his fault—and in a way, it was 😆. At the time, music had only been an outlet for pain and struggle, and I didn’t know how to write about what was good. And when I met Andrew, life got really, really good.

Of course, that’s an oversimplification. I’m still in a process of excavating the deeper layers of why Music Meghan and Wife/Mother Meghan couldn’t seem to exist in the same dimension (pretty sure I’m not alone in this—gestures toward Women Who Run With the Wolves). I’m still unpacking it with my analyst. I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, but the song!

I love that some of you reading this were there for the moments I describe. Some of you know exactly what exploded at our wedding. Some of you were at the tavern the night we met. Some of you have heard the trash can story one too many times.

This is a love song to Andrew—but it’s also a love song to our friends, our family, and to the weird, hard, funny, and heart-wrenching moments that make up a life. So I guess it’s a love song to life— and that helps me know that I’ve come a long way.

I hope you like it.

About this recording:

This was the fourth take of this song, recorded with my very patient and generous friend Eric. And even though it STILL WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH and my guitar was apparently a little out of tune, I decided to let it go—mostly out of fear that he might realize that I’m unhinged and wouldn’t want to help me record again. Secret’s out!

So, as usual, here’s a beautifully recorded, mediocre but good-enough performance of a song I love very much.

Enjoy. 💜

Lyrics:

Do It Again

Would you marry me again?

By the rocks and the oak trees in the canyon

The fall sky reminding the sun to set

We were drunk and dancing and dripping sweat

The room so hot we got it to explode

Would you sleep with me again

In a rented van by the hotel trash cans

A man in a golf cart and a very nice suit

Said if he could do it again, that's what he would do

And he closed the gate and we went to sleep on that country road

And it hurts sometimes, but god knows we try

I don’t know where we’re going

But where we’ve been, I would do it all again

Would you hold my hand again

In that icey bright room my body cut open

Strangers making small talk as they pulled her through

It’s a girl they said but i already knew

That would be the last thing i would ever really know for sure

Would you meet me for the first time again

At that roadside honkey tonk dive bar tavern

I was with the band you were too handsome

Tried to play hard to get but i was already gone

The night that split my life into after and before

And it hurts sometimes, but god knows we try

And I don’t know where we’re going

But where we’ve been, I would do it all again

About this song:

When I discovered through the internet that I wasn’t the only mom with an escape fantasy, it was such a relief.

It’s funny, but it’s not. The hospital fantasy is a big one for moms.

For me, my “siren song” has always been music. My mom escape-fantasy is touring as a songwriter in my old 1987 VW Westfalia. I imagine myself driving around the country, spending my days at campgrounds, sitting quietly by a stream or napping under the shade of a sycamore tree. In the evenings I play my songs at small venues, making friends and chatting with adults. The pace is slow and I nap, write more songs, take walks in nature. Did I mention there would be naps?

When I wrote the song Let Me Believe, it was from a terrified and guilty and mad-as-hell place.

The place that good mothers are not supposed to talk about.

The place where of course you love your children more than anything, but you also feel like you’re disappearing. Or caged. Or slowly being strangled to death.

I was promised by my culture that my own birth as “Mother” would give me everything I ever wanted— and it was a total set up, because now we are parenting in a culture where “intensive mothering”— the expectation that we devote extreme resources to child-rearing, without external support, has become the cultural ideal.

Mothers used to have a village, and now we are expected to be the village. (Shout out to Jessica Roy for this idea.)

No wonder Kristen Bell wants to get hit by a car!

So here’s a song about my own siren song.

About this recording:

When I was trying to learn Logic Pro (side note: I’m still trying!) I sent some demos to the amazing Austin Beede and had him record drums parts. I get really bored hearing just my voice and guitar, so this was fun for me. Someday I hope to flesh this song out with some other instruments, and clean up my parts (there’s some sloppy stuff in there, enjoy!), so I’m still calling this a “demo”, to indicate that it’s not remotely close to finished.

Enjoy the messy! I hope you like it!

Lyrics:

I don’t want to die a lonely woman

Or with my children by my side, hoping to be forgiven

But how do you make a life, and then keep on living?

Pretending it’s not the end of all you’ve ever known?

Strap me to the mast so I can sail past this siren song

Let me believe that I’m free so that I come back home.

Holding tight to tiny hands in the light of the morning

Dragon breath and bed head, and the ache of it all

Naked in the sheets, my body unrecognizable

It’s okay, I don’t really live there anymore

Strap me to the mast so I can sail past this siren song

Let me believe that I’m free so that I come back home.

My angels, my babies, if this every falls upon your ears

Know I’d go and do it a hundred times again

To know your sweet souls, your butterfly kisses

Freedom’s got nothing on the life that you gave me

Strap me to the mast so I can sail past this siren song

Let me believe that I’m free so that I come back home

Thank you for listening!

xox Meg

I guess this is a song about waking up. It’s about waking up to the places and patterns where we’ve been asleep, and where we’ve been put to sleep—kept busy & preoccupied, so that we’re disconnected from our power. It’s about how we’ve been conditioned to hide the best, most interesting, most alive parts of ourselves. And it’s about the fantasy life promised to us as women and mothers if we perform “goodness,” and the punishment waiting for us if we don’t.

When I write, I rarely know where the song is going, and I often get a good old, much-needed lesson from the Muse as she dictates the lyrics to me. I loved the stunner of a message in the last verse and chorus. I feel so fucking good when I sing those words.

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum, if you know what I mean.

About this recording:

I recorded this at my friend Eric Rachmany’s home studio here in Santa Barbara, and he’s got a real-deal setup, so the sound quality is a lot better than some of the songs I’ll be sharing in the future. It’s all downhill from here, folks.

Lyrics:

Every morning I wake up slow, turn away from you

Don’t want you to see the guilty ghosts of my dreams

I go to the sink, and blink at these crows feet

I would brush my teeth but the baby’s crying

And I’m keeping busy, keeping pretty, keeping quiet, keeping small

And I keep holding it all

If I could get a little space, tune my ear to this place

Find out where I am, find my way back to her rhythm

The moon moves her tides, but I’m paralyzed

Terrified these words might burn me alive

And I’m keeping busy, keeping pretty, keeping quiet, keeping small

And I keep holding it all

Who? Who?Who is coming for me?

Every evening I go down deep, fall into a beauty sleep

Waiting on the dawn, a hundred years in this patch of thorns

Right on the edge, not living but not dead

I have been unwell but her whispers tell me

Only my own kiss can break this spell

And I'm keeping busy, keeping pretty, keeping quiet, keeping small

And I will not hold this all.

Thank you for listening. xoxox

Meg

p.s. You can listen to other songs on Spotify, Apple, or other low-fi stuff on SoundCloud.

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“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country

Hi, my name is Meghan.

Here is what I look like (sort of recently):

In 2018, at the venerable age of 38, I got a wild hair to start sharing my music with people again, after a decade-long hiatus brought on by…well, becoming an adult—having kids, a job, a marriage, etc.

Remember 2018? We were so cute and innocent!

Back then, I was trying to untangle patterns of self-doubt, perfectionism, and a fear of being seen & judged. For two decades, I had wrestled with a burning desire to sing, write, and share my songs—always to be met with a massive fear that my music was awful and no one had the heart to tell me, that people might laugh at me behind my back, or, worst of all, that I was self-absorbed and attention-seeking.

(But also—I can’t begin to count the number of hours I spent listening to mediocre music played by cis hetero white guys with guitars in Isla Vista in the early 2000s, and I sincerely don’t believe they ever experienced a fraction of the worry & concern I just described. Just sayin’. )

In 2018, in an attempt to break free from that crushing fear and self-doubt I described, I started pushing myself to share my old songs and write new ones. I put an old album on Spotify (I'm still not sure if that was a good idea—it’s not great), and with the help of my friend Todd Hannigan, I recorded an EP called The Way of Wonder.

Perfectionism was (and still is) something I wrestled with, so at that time, I also experimented with what I called Kitchen Table Covers—where once a week, I recorded a cover song, quick and dirty, at my kitchen table, and shared it that day.

The rules were this: once I hit record, I had to play the song straight through. No stopping. No re-dos. I was allowed two takes, and then I had to pick one and send it out to this very email list. I did it for 14 weeks.

It was fun, and it stretched me. I was learning how to “let it be lousy”.

And, you know, life did what life does—it went by fast.

The years since that time have been good-busy, but music did not do well in the “that would be a useful way to spend time” algorithm of our daily schedule.

And so here we are.

Now it’s 2025, and the world feels different.

The systems we’ve been living under our whole lives are unraveling before our eyes. Nothing feels like it did before, and I think a lot of people are really scared—including me.

Sharing my songs doesn’t feel like a route to personal liberation or growth anymore—though that’s always part of it. This time, the impulse is coming from somewhere deeper.

For the past few years—especially since last November—my prayer has been the same:

"What do I do? What can I do?"

Over and over, I ask, and the answer is always the same:

Create art.

So that’s what I’m going to do. Even if it’s lousy. Because Kurt Vonnegut said so.

What I know:

Art makes life more bearable.

My art is writing and singing songs.

Many of these songs are languishing, unheard, in the dusty files of my computer.

That makes me sad! These songs chose me as their mother, and I want to be a good mother to them.

Maybe I’ll record a proper album again someday—who knows? I hope so. But until then, I want to give these songs a life.

Sharing demos before they’re “properly” recorded goes against every rule I’ve ever read or been told, and I don’t give a rat’s ass.

Nothing is as it was before, so I’m going to do it differently.

I will create as well as I can, and I will endeavor to give life to beauty. And if I’m afraid it’s lousy, I’m going to let it be lousy, and share it anyway.

Will you come with me?

Let’s go!

— Meghan

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