In August 2020 I was sitting on our porch with Ingela drinking wine and I made a rather rash decision. I thought to my (tipsy) self, "Hey...why don't I reach out to Corin of Alpha and ask him if he wants to collaborate."
A week later I was in Taos, NM I received a response from Corin of Alpha via Instagram. His response was, "Hi, yes we should , I’ll send a track after the summer." Things actually moved faster than I thought. Within a few more days he had sent me an instrumental track with the instructions to write some words and a melody.
I asked him what inspired him to write this song, or for clarity about what it is about. He responded that the working title was "Race Packaged People." I found this a very poignant concept. To me it meant that society teaches us that the color of our skin separates us and keeps us from truly "seeing each other." It was an explosive time in the United States. George Floyd had been murdered earlier that year by a police officer. Numerous other African-Americans were being killed just because of the color of their skin. The Black Lives Matter movement was in the forefront of my mind. I wanted to show my love and support for my friends of color. I began experimenting with writing lyrics.
In the end, Corin went with the line Separated Sadness as the title of the track for the album.
However, I wanted to go past just the idea of race separating us. There are numerous issues that cause people to fear people who are different. This includes sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, socioeconomic status, etc.
However, the real message of the song is the chorus.
It was a huge honor to co-write this song with Corin. It honestly was a dream come true and a real professional highlight. He seemed impressed that I was a university professor.
Taken from singer Michael Hix's blog...
In August 2020 I was sitting on our porch with Ingela drinking wine and I made a rather rash decision. I thought to my (tipsy) self, "Hey...why don't I reach out to Corin of Alpha and ask him if he wants to collaborate." A week later I was in Taos, NM I received a response from Corin of Alpha via Instagram. His response was, "Hi, yes we should , I’ll send a track after the summer." Things actually moved faster than I thought. Within a few more days he had sent me an instrumental track with the instructions to write some words and a melody.
I asked him what inspired him to write this song, or for clarity about what it is about. He responded that the working title was "Race Packaged People." I found this a very poignant concept. To me it meant that society teaches us that the color of our skin separates us and keeps us from truly "seeing each other." It was an explosive time in the United States. George Floyd had been murdered earlier that year by a police officer. Numerous other African-Americans were being killed just because of the color of their skin. The Black Lives Matter movement was in the forefront of my mind. I wanted to show my love and support for my friends of color. I began experimenting with writing lyrics. In the end, Corin went with the line Separated Sadness as the title of the track for the album.
However, I wanted to go past just the idea of race separating us. There are numerous issues that cause people to fear people who are different. This includes sexual orientation, religion, gender identity, socioeconomic status, etc. However, the real message of the song is the chorus.
It was a huge honor to co-write this song with Corin. It honestly was a dream come true and a real professional highlight. He seemed impressed that I was a university professor.