Canary

Canary is an ode to physical, mental, and emotional sensitivity. I’ve always been a(n overly) sensitive person. I get sick easily. I get scared easily. I get sad easily. I wrote this song during my junior year of high school, while I was on medically mandated vocal rest for a then undiagnosed illness that caused me a great deal of throat pain, which meant I couldn’t really sing which made me really sad. One night my mom and I were watching TV and a Subaru commercial came on. In it, a family gets a new puppy and a new Subaru. At the end of the commercial, the dog is very old and the car is still in pristine condition which I guess is supposed to motivate you to buy a Subaru but just made my sensitive self think about the finitude of life and the inescapability of death so I burst into tears started blabbering about how this dog was gonna die soon. My mom looked over at me and said, “wow, you are so sensitive” and I couldn’t exactly argue.

I’m really proud of this song. It communicates something I’ve felt for a long time and but was never able to articulate until now.