We were lucky to catch up with Georgia Middleman recently and have shared our conversation below.
Georgia, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
Yes! I became a professional songwriter and found out it’s not just about getting a song on the radio that determines your success. I’ve discovered that being a professional songwriter can have a lot of amazing and important uses. A couple of examples:
I work with an organization called Songwriting With: Soldiers which pairs up professional songwriters with combat veterans and first responders. Because of the nature of their jobs, these folks have had to deal with the unimaginable which can make daily living or assimilating back to civilian life quite challenging. My job is to help them put their story into song and it’s always amazing to me to see how transformative that experience is. When they hear their own words sitting on top of a melody coming out of that guitar…there’s something so beautiful and freeing about it. All that bottled up trauma can now go out of their bodies and into the world… and not only does their song get written, but it also gets witnessed by others at the retreats. That’s when they see how telling their story out loud might help others who haven’t found the words yet.
I remember writing with a veteran in Texas about seven years ago and she and I had a wonderful time. We both loved the song and were interviewed separately for a video about the experience four years later. When I saw the video, I couldn’t believe what I heard: my collaborator said she had attended that particular retreat, not so much to write a song but to say goodbye to her best friends who were going to be there. In this interview, she had mentioned that the retreat took place from Friday to Sunday and the following Monday, she was planning on taking her life. But after writing her song and going through the weekend, she changed her mind. I can’t speak to why she changed her mind but I can say having worked with her- she is so brilliant and poetic and I felt so lucky to have worked with her. That experience changed me. I’m very grateful I was a writer in the room that day.
Another amazing thing that happened to me was I once cowrote a song called “Take A Good Look At My Face” told from the point of view of a missing child who is alive but still not free. I’m a big believer in writing what compels you even if you don’t know why you’re writing it. The song was inspired by the book “I Know My First Name Is Steven” (the story of Steven Stayner who was abducted at age seven) and my cowriters and I were imagining what it might be like to be a missing kid out there in the world whose parents have no idea where you are. Picturing the child standing next to the kidnapper, we wrote it imagining the kid uses his eyes to talk to strangers as if to say “Take a good look at my face. Maybe you’ve seen the flyers? Maybe you’ll recognize me and call 911? Maybe you’ll be the one to save me?”
I sent it blindly through the mail to the TV show “America’s Most Wanted” hosted by John Walsh but never heard back. Fifteen years later, I was still thinking about it. I thought: how can I make a video of it to bring awareness to missing children? That’s when a friend of mine had an amazing idea. She had gone to the Polly Klaas Foundation website and saw a page on there that showed photo after photo of currently missing children. She called me and said “There’s your video.” Brilliant. So I reached out to the Polly Klaas Foundation and less than an hour after I’d sent the email, they had written me back and told me they just heard my song and wanted to use it as their video for National Missing Children’s Day. I was so honored by that.
Georgia, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Sure! I’m a professional singer/songwriter and I’ve had my songs recorded by Keith Urban, Reba McEntire, Faith Hill, Kenny Chesney, Sheila E and many others. I’ve released five solo records and sung harmony with Carole King and Ringo Starr…I was also one-third of the trio Blue Sky Riders along with Kenny Loggins and Gary Burr.
I initially got into music because I was a lonely kid and found that when I picked up the guitar, I wasn’t lonely anymore. The way Burt Bacharach and The Beatles wrote pop melodies that would make my heart soar…how Merle Haggard and Dolly Parton could tell a great story with just a few words…I knew I had to learn how to do THAT. I moved to Nashville 30 years ago so I could learn the craft and for the last 25 years, I’ve made my living purely from music. I think the why behind what I do is that it’s a way to connect with fellow humans as if to say “This is how I feel. Any chance, you’ve ever felt this way too?”
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My take on creativity is that if you’re still breathing, you’ve got something to offer this world. It’s okay to feel lost. You don’t always have to know the why behind what you’re doing but it’s essential you do what your heart is trying to tell you to do, even if it’s just a hobby. To be creative is to be alive and solve problems. These fun little hobbies or experiments that make time stand still for us can sometimes turn into real money-making jobs or attract new friends or allies into our lives because of a common interest. And community is EVERYTHING. I didn’t know you could make a living writing or singing songs until suddenly, I did. And my community of cowriters is the place I go to for advice when I’m feeling down because on a particular day when I may be identifying with the “business” a little too much, they’re the ones who remind me that I’m more than what I do.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
What I love about being an artist is seeing the creative exploration through to the end because you never know what you’re going to get. Those little surprises keep life interesting. I always know if I do these three things: relax, have faith in the moment and commit to the discipline of writing a little bit every day…I just might stumble upon a new and exciting idea. Or a brand new way of expressing an old idea. To me, staying curious, being vulnerable and willing to explore the sometimes dark and scary spaces of the human experience is what invites innovation. I write because I have a problem I need to solve. Life will chew you up into little pieces sometimes but when I’m in the act of writing, I feel as if I’m made whole again. The act of creating feeds that part of my soul that can feel like a bottomless pit. And the minute someone else responds to what I’ve created, I am reminded I am not alone in the world.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.georgiamiddleman.com
- Instagram: @georgiamiddleman
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100059526345630
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/georgia-middleman-18165a90
- Twitter: @gmiddleman
- Other: www.middlemanburr.com