I set a goal in 2019 to write 100 songs in a year, and I wrote “Palace” on the third day of that challenge.

I had been listening to a lot of Adele,
the master of emotion, and wanted to capture this sense of longing I had over a relationship that was not going to recover.

I can be loyal to a fault, to my detriment, and “Palace” was my way of expressing that.
I had planned on releasing this song in 2019 or 2020, but I never got a version I was happy with and was moving on to other songs. So, now it can be heard.

“I’ll hold nostalgia close tonight//and I’ll forget the bad parts every time.”

How often do we get caught up in the memory of something that we forget how bad the reality was?

My therapist once told me that I chase after unavailable people, and I suddenly understood every decision I had made in relationships.

I wrote this song as a way to express the emotional obstacles my mind goes through when my co-dependent tendencies turn desperate to keep me from falling off someone’s radar. And it also captures my growth.

(The track you hear is the one-take demo vocal. I tried to edit it, but everything I added couldn’t compare to the original. Hence, the background noise, the rhythmic issues... Guess I was in my feels.)

”Trying to prove to you that I could be enough.”

Surely if I was enough, then I would be loved by someone rather than reached out to only when it was convenient for them.

This song is equally realistic and metaphorical. In 2022, I was going through a wave of depression and didn’t respond to any texts or phone calls for two days, which is abnormal for me.

When I finally picked up the phone with my frantic mother on the other end, I said, “You can call off the search. You found me,” and I knew I had to write a song about it.

“I was finally learning//[my old habits] were never working.”

I think we often do the same thing because we don’t know another way, and seeing our own insanity can be life shattering.