Celebrating 1 Year of "The Person in the Mirror"

I can't believe "The Person in the Mirror" has been yours for an entire year now. My label debut. The album I spent my whole life dreaming of making. These songs have been so integral to my artistic process, and I’d like to tell you some of the stories behind them.

Track 1: Eighteen

I wrote this song after looking back on the past few years and wondering where the time went. It felt like part of me was still stuck in a moment that was apparently long gone. I found myself in a really weird position where events in my life were beginning to repeat, as if no time had passed at all. I wanted to write a song about feeling like my mind had not caught up with my body.

Track 2: What Do I Know?

I made the track to this song, and it felt like there was this underlying bite to it. I was going through a lot of changes with friends and I wanted to write a bit of a satirical song. I came to this one being like, “Ok! I have no idea where my life is going.” It’s me being hopeful…and maybe a little bit cynical.

Track 3: Insane

I was sitting one day ranting to a friend of mine when I suddenly got up and ran to grab my notebook. I wrote down what ended up being the chorus for “Insane”. At its core, it’s me analyzing myself. I think you can see me working through that as the song progresses.

Track 4: Been There Too

Going away to college is so weird because you come home and you realize time has passed there too. I came home from school and I felt like my brothers had aged 5 years since I had last seen them. They’re at the ages now that so much of my music had been written at. I wanted to write a song about how I understand what they’re going through and how I’ll always be here.

Track 5: Autopsy

I wrote this song feeling very scared that I was always going to be the little boy who wanted to fit in. I really liked the idea of dying by a broken heart, and I wanted to center the entire song around that extended metaphor. The autopsy is my own self analysis and the cause of death is my heartbreak.

Track 6: When I Was Young

I wrote this song after I came home from Christmas Eve feeling like so much had changed. I think it’s really difficult to watch the ones we love grow old. I wanted to write a song about the juxtaposition between my desire to grow up and missing the things I had as a kid. All of these dreams have become reality, but at what cost?

Track 7: Dying Breath

I was on a trip in Montana and I was sitting in my room pretty late at night. I hadn’t written anything in a really long time. I looped some piano chords and started singing some melodies. It was my first time visiting the state since my senior year of high school, and I was just thinking about how my life had changed since.

Track 8: Rear View

Chriss Rune Olsen Angvik DM’d me on Instagram telling me he had heard a song of mine, and he asked me if I would want to work on something with him. At the time, I really only had concepts of an album, and I didn’t have much to send him. I sat down with my guitar, really mad at myself about a situation. I decided to write this song as a way to pull myself out. He really helped bring this song to life.

Track 9: Goodbye to Yesterday

One of the first songs written for this album. I wanted to write a song about feeling like the world had ended. Like something so catastrophic occurred that there’s no possibility to return to what you once knew. Every time I hear those guitars hit at the chorus, my heart just shatters.

Track 10: Break

I wrote this song after coming to the realization that I was stopping myself from moving on. It’s this fight-or-flight instinct after being hurt so much. If I don’t put myself out there, I can’t end up sad...right?

Track 11: The Man I’d Like to Be

It was really late one night at school and I couldn’t sleep. I was staring out my window, looking off into the city. I wrote down a stream of consciousness; just how I was feeling in the moment. I wasn’t intending to write a song, I was just chronicling how I was feeling in the moment. When I woke up the next morning, I re-read what I had written and I could immediately hear a melody.

Track 12: Heart Attack

Lots of people at my label were asking me to put a “happy” song on the record. At first, I pushed back. I didn’t want to write a song that felt insincere. It wasn’t until a few months later that I wrote “Heart Attack” based off of where my life was heading towards, and then I was like, “Oh! I did it!”

Track 13: The Story of My Life

I’ve been collecting little lines about my family for years, and I was always unsure about how I wanted to position this song. For a record so crucially tied to time, family, and evaluation, it only felt right to close out the record with this song. I scattered samples of my family throughout it because I wanted them to truly be a part of the track. It’s so emotional for me to listen back to, and every time I hear the sample of my mom talking to me on my first day of 1st Grade, I tear up a bit.

Thank you for loving this record for the past year. I'm eternally grateful.

Love,

Sean

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