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This song takes positive ownership of a feature of my personality that previously felt like a liability. Cheers for Tears is an apology – in the Socratic sense – for being prone to crying, which was a pronounced fixture in my childhood, and which continues to some degree today. Although I was called a crybaby in grade school, there were good reasons for my “sensitivity,” as many adults (both encouraging and disparaging) labeled it. I now understand my ability to weep as a gift, and I believe that it is the only reason I’m now a relatively well adjusted person. Although I wasn’t looking to write a song to justify my weepiness, this is one of a few songs that were given to me almost fully formed in a dream, and I usually take that as a mandate to finish the song. As you will hear, it has big swings in dynamics and covers 1 ½ octaves, which was a challenge to get in the pocket vocally. In November 2016, I played this song as the closer of my sold out show at Art Boutiki in San Jose, California celebrating the release of my EP Something Good.

In addition to songwriting, lead vocals, and writing the harmony vocals , I played acoustic guitar and performed backing vocals. Kenny Schick, my producer, also sang backing vocals and played or programmed all other instruments. Kenny recorded his parts at Basement3Productions in Nashville, TN, and I recorded my acoustic guitar and vocals in March 2018 with Steven Glaze at ToneFreq Studio in San Jose, California.

Fun fact: one of my family members thinks this song is the most likely to prompt someone to hold up a lighter at a concert …

I wrote Cheers for Tears in 2016, then dedicated it to the Waldorf School of the Peninsula Class of 2017 the following year.