If you’ve only bumped in to my orbit within the last couple years, there are a few things you might not know about me.
The mystery item of primary importance for this post would be that I am a musician.
Before I dove into the rabbit hole of company culture and making organizations great, I was convinced I wanted to be a performing musician (i.e. “rockstar”). This is one of the reasons I ended up in Los Angeles, in fact, almost nine years ago. But after moving to California I decided that music, while a great way to feed one’s soul, wasn’t actually a very good way to do things like, say, feed myself food, and I fortuitously discovered the seeds for the career I currently have soon after arriving here.
But back in the day, man… music was IT for me. In many ways it still is, I suppose — it’s just not the way I make money. If you were to come to my office, for example, you’d find Spotify playing constantly in the background. I take my baby daughter to music classes on weekends. And I still believe with all my heart that there’s something about music that speaks to the soul of a person in a way that nothing else does.
Back in 2004, when I lived in Denver, my friend Dom asked me to write an original Christmas song for their Warm & Fuzzy Christmas Show, a special radio morning show on 100.3FM where the hosts bring in local artists to sing holiday music live on the air.
I accepted Dom’s challenge, but I wanted to create something from a different angle than all the other holiday music out there. I racked my brain for weeks, and finally came up with something I thought was unique: I figured most people have probably heard of the nativity story, with Mary and Joseph (and Jesus, of course), and, while there have been a few really great songs written from Mary’s perspective, there weren’t any that I knew of from Joseph’s point of view (if you know this one, it came out the year following).
So this tune is from the perspective of Joseph, writing a love song to Mary.
No matter what day or time you live in, I figure marrying a girl who’s gotten pregnant by someone other than you is a pretty noble thing to do. I like to think that ‘ol Joe must have been pretty smitten with Mary.
Finally — a full ten years after this song debuted on Warm & Fuzzy — earlier this year I was able to go back and give this song the production treatment it deserved with the help of my friend J. Benjamin Kesler.
I hope you enjoy this brand new version of “Mary.”
Happy holidays!
Get “Mary” on iTunes here.
Listen on Spotify here (or below).
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And I’ll chime in and say that we still talk about Josh’s contributions to our Christmas shows. Not only a remarkable artist, but one of the best people I know. Cheers, Josh!
Thanks so much, Dom! :-D I hope you are doing well, my friend! Hope to see you again soon.
Josh,
I, too, love music and find it calms the soul in unique ways. Thank you for sharing your song! I especially love the lyrics and the thoughtful perspective! Why does this not surprise me coming from you!
I also love that you are teaching the love of music to your daughter. Over the course of the 25 years we’ve been raising our 5 children, we have gone to the same piano teacher for almost 19 years. While none of my children will earn their living making music, the music in them gives them a dimension that holds great value.
Thank you for sharing!
Thanks so much, Janet! :-D