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In October 2020, I did a professional livestream from Art Boutiki Music Hall in San Jose CA as a wonderful consolation prize for my cancelled May 2020 album release show. A 7 year old girl named McKiely from Louisville KY saw my show with my old friend from high school and asked him to ask me to write a song about “how terrible Covid is.”

I take questions like this very seriously, so despite being sure I would not write anything about Covid, I tried. I wanted to capture the horrible-ness of it all as requested, but I also wanted to give some hope, which I wasn’t feeling at the time. I played it for my husband and daughter shortly after I wrote it, and they cried. I think we need to have some mementoes of the time, even if they are painful.

As I was preparing to record this song, the bridge began to beg for what I could only call a “chorus of humanity.” I wrote 4 harmony parts – Soprano, Alto, Tenor & Bass – and solicited recordings from friends, family, and online from anyone who wanted to participate with the promise of a backing vocal album credit in return. During the 6-week campaign, I received 57 voices singing 72 tracks, which kept my producer, Kenny Schick, quite busy for a time, and resulted in a fantastic choral bridge of this song, including a beautiful track from McKiely herself. THANK YOU to every one of you who participated, wanted to participate, and cheered on those who did!

The McKiely’s Song Chorus

In addition to songwriting, lead vocals, and writing the harmony vocals, I performed backing vocals on this song. Kenny Schick, my producer, also sang backing vocals and played or programmed all of the instruments. Kenny recorded his parts at Basement3Productions in Nashville, Tennessee, and I recorded my parts in May 2022 with Steven Glaze at ToneFreq Studio in San Jose, California.