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Taken from American Songwriter (Feb 23, 2021)
Emmy Award-Winning Songwriter Maggie Rose Joins Michael Franti's 'Stay Human' Podcast
by Delia Rowland
Maggie Rose. Courtesy Image |
Emmy award-winning songwriter and Nashville-based artist, Maggie Rose joins Michael Franti on his Stay Human podcast for a discussion on the pandemic, songwriting, creative processes, growing up in the church and more.
Despite growing up in a non-musical family, Rose has always felt a pull towards performing. As a child, she would perform "whatever Disney song" she had just learned for guests at her home.
From that point, and after learning at the age of 16 that performing was most definitely what she wanted to do, Rose dropped out of college and set her sights for Nashville.
"I had the guts to move to Nashville and pursue the career, but from an artistic standpoint I wish that I had just been my own target instead of trying to hit someone else's for the first couple years that I was in Nashville," Rose says. "It was a baptism by fire situation and I was writing some of the first decent songs ever once I had moved to Nashville, because you get there and you have so many amazing people to collaborate with, but there's a lot of undoing that I had to go through to start to really enjoy my truth and the music that I'm making."
Today, Rose is still focused on the same thing: seeking truth. By leaning in to the intuitive and intentional side of songwriting, she is dedicated to the practice of digging deep and extracting truth and then finding a way to channel it musically.
Rose goes on to explain how she was able to continue to hone her craft with her band, even in isolation, specifically with her single "20/20."
"There are beautiful things that come out of the growth and the discomfort that we've all had to experience together," Rose says. "That song is a silver lining. But I think that it's mostly the conversation that's happening and the creation that's coming out of it. It was the first song I've ever had to record remotely and I was able to, even though we were all very isolated. It was one of the more inclusive projects that I've ever been able to be a part of ... I just kind of got to pass it around and let everyone put their fingerprints on it. That was medicinal in its own right."
Later in the podcast, Rose shares that creating music to her is not only medicinal but a "vehicle" that helps her "work through her feelings." In this way, Rose is a true artist seeking not only to make music for her own benefit but for the benefit of others as well.
As far as what she believes staying human is all about, Rose sums it up beautifully.
"Giving yourself the grace to take risks, and put beautiful things out there and then move on and put another thing out there. I think that's being human. That's how you evolve and don't get intimidated by what it is that you're trying to do. Because you're going to do something else great, subsequently."
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