all too well

The lyrics don’t talk about one linear story but moments when those feelings are evoked

The first part introduces those feelings (sharing gloves, playing video games, passing notes)

The second part finds them again much later in the beginnings of love (the nerve to touch my hand which ties back to the gloves, twenty questions which ties back to video games, conversation which ties back to notes), this person stirs feelings just as pure and true as the ones found in the innocent discoveries of childhood

The change from snow to a clear light pink sky shows the change in time and both literal and metaphorical season

The third part realizes these feelings in true love (sidewalk chalk covered in snow and rice on the ground looks like snow)

True love brings back the whimsy and sweetness we thought could only be found in childhood :’)

Decade.

OR

If you want to make the cookies from scratch (that’s what I did for the 1989 Secret Sessions), you can use this recipe I found on a baking blog I like, joythebaker.com and I believe it was originally from a book called The Pastry Queen. If you want another great baking blog, I get a lot of great ideas from smittenkitchen.com too. This is a recipe for basic insanely good sugar cookies. I added the chai element to the recipe because I thought it would infuse cozy holiday vibez into the cookie and it really did. So I’ll star the part that I added in the recipe.

http://joythebaker.com/2009/06/giant-vanilla-sugar-cookies/

***after you add the egg and vanilla, cut one chai tea packet open and empty the crushed up tea leaves into the batter CAUSE CHAI COOKIES ARE ABOUT TO HAPPEN UP IN HERE***

I made an icing for the cookies, but they’re fine on their own. If you want to make icing for them, just mix 1 cup powdered sugar with 1/4 T-spoon of nutmeg, 1/4 T-spoon of cinnamon and 3 TAYblespoons <—-(I’m so annoying, it astounds me sometimes) of milk or eggnog if you can find it this time of year. The more milk/eggnog you add, the more your icing will become a glaze. But glazes are legit too so basically just LIVE YOUR LIFE.

I lightly sprinkled cinnamon over the icing once the cookies were baked and iced, but there are so many icing options you can pair with these cookies—I mean it’s out of control. If you’re really feeling like living on the edge, you can go ahead and add a few drops of food coloring to the icing to make it festive. No one is going to stop you.

Why?

Cause the bakers gonna bake bake bake bake bake.

For years I asked, pleaded for a chance to own my work. Instead I was given an opportunity to sign back up to Big Machine Records and ‘earn’ one album back at a time, one for every new one I turned in. I walked away because I knew once I signed that contract, Scott Borchetta would sell the label, thereby selling me and my future. I had to make the excruciating choice to leave behind my past. Music I wrote on my bedroom floor and videos I dreamed up and paid for from the money I earned playing in bars, then clubs, then arenas, then stadiums. 

Some fun facts about today’s news: I learned about Scooter Braun’s purchase of my masters as it was announced to the world. All I could think about was the incessant, manipulative bullying I’ve received at his hands for years. 

Like when Kim Kardashian orchestrated an illegally recorded snippet of a phone call to be leaked and then Scooter got his two clients together to bully me online about it. (See photo) Or when his client, Kanye West, organized a revenge porn music video which strips my body naked. Now Scooter has stripped me of my life’s work, that I wasn’t given an opportunity to buy. Essentially, my musical legacy is about to lie in the hands of someone who tried to dismantle it.

This is my worst case scenario. This is what happens when you sign a deal at fifteen to someone for whom the term ‘loyalty’ is clearly just a contractual concept. And when that man says ‘Music has value’, he means its value is beholden to men who had no part in creating it. 

When I left my masters in Scott’s hands, I made peace with the fact that eventually he would sell them. Never in my worst nightmares did I imagine the buyer would be Scooter. Any time Scott Borchetta has heard the words ‘Scooter Braun’ escape my lips, it was when I was either crying or trying not to. He knew what he was doing; they both did. Controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity. That means forever. 

Thankfully, I am now signed to a label that believes I should own anything I create. Thankfully, I left my past in Scott’s hands and not my future. And hopefully, young artists or kids with musical dreams will read this and learn about how to better protect themselves in a negotiation. You deserve to own the art you make.

I will always be proud of my past work. But for a healthier option, Lover will be out August 23. 

Sad and grossed out,

💔