Five Songs That Changed My Life: The Mother

This post is part of Five Songs That Changed My Life, a personal series reflecting on the music that guided me back to playing, performing, and sharing songs with others. The songs in this series unfold in order, beginning with Lava and ending with Love Story.
The fourth song in this series is The Mother.

Finding Truth, Purpose, and Belonging on Stage

You might think The Mother is my favorite Brandi Carlile song, but it actually comes in behind The Story and Carried Me With You. I liked Brandi Carlile’s music for years, but I fell in love with her artistry the night I saw her live at Red Rocks. I spent most of that evening in a state of incredulous awe. The band was exceptional, the arrangements felt perfectly matched to each song, and the entire performance was honest, powerful, and generous. Somewhere during that show, I realized that being on stage—sharing music, truth, and connection—was my ikigai: my purpose in life.

The Mother stands apart because of the emotional space it occupies. It doesn’t romanticize motherhood—it tells the truth about it. The song is bittersweet, funny, and deeply human, capturing the way love can be both grounding and disorienting at the same time. My heart dropped when Brandi sang the final line of the chorus: “I am the mother of Evangeline.” For eight years, I had my own Evangeline in my life—my amazing, incredible stepdaughter—and hearing her name sung with such tenderness felt like the air leaving my sails.

Brandi’s lyrics are fearless in their honesty. Lines like “The first things that she took from me were selfishness and sleep” and “She fills my life with color, cancels plans, and trashed my car” hold humor and truth in perfect balance. In Hawaiian music culture, it’s completely acceptable to adjust lyrics to make them more personal, and I embraced that tradition by changing some of the words to reflect my own relationship with Evangeline. Singing The Mother became a way to honor that chapter of my life—one shaped by love, sacrifice, laughter, and growth.

The Mother is the fourth song that changed my life, not only because of what it says, but because of who says it. Through this song—and through her presence as an artist—Brandi Carlile showed me what it looks like to lead with truth, vulnerability, and integrity. She didn’t just change how I listen to music; she changed how I understand my place within it