a song is an oracle

why i believe making music is a magical act.

Hiya friend!

As you may have noticed, this sweet newsletter is nestled inside my sad girl indie project Hattie’s ecosystem. If you’re new here, Hattie is named after my great grandmother; I first had the impulse to start a project in her honor back in 2016, and due to a combo platter of creative resistance and right timing it took me until 2022 to really bring her into the world. If you’ve been around for a bit, you know we’ve talked about creative practice, community, and my current life moment of healing from vocal surgery. I’m assuming all my friends new and old here know I’m a musician, but I haven’t shared any of my capital-w WORK with you.

Part of the reason I have yet to have share any of my music is because, for me, making music is so much more than the songwriting, producing, and recording of it all. It’s about healing. Starting at literally like 10 years old, I’ve written songs to process the harder things in life and to come out the other side.

Ever since I started Hattie, I’ve wondered if songs do even more than heal. What if songs are oracles carrying the messages we need to hear but couldn’t possibly know yet?

I teach a summer songwriting program to high school aged students and one of the main questions I pose is:

What if we don’t have to be a creative genius because we have a creative genius?

These are

Elizabeth Gilbert

’s words, whom I’ve cited here before because I’m obsessed with her.

What if, therefore, our songs speak to us in order to heal and help us to come more into our own wholeness.

The first single I released as Hattie, “Nobody,” is a song about falling fast for someone I met on Tinder, obsessing over making plans with them while I was hanging at Coney Island with a bunch of friends, riding the cyclone, and eventually realizing I’d lost myself in the process. Lol — quite the log-line, I know. Since you’re a bff here at Hattie & Friends, I thought I’d embed the .wav file right here for you to listen to!

Nobody by Hattie

The version of me who wrote this song could not see what this song was trying to tell me. To be totally candid, I thought it was a loves song, which is crazy to me now. The refrain “I’m nobody” was inspired by something that the person I was dating said to me about themself, but it speaks volumes. This song has been an oracle and in invitation for me to heal in relationship, to bring all of myself to others and to know that I’m frigging awesome.

How could my song know more about me than I knew then? That seems pretty magical if you ask me.

My next single, “21st Century,” was first inspired by voicemails from student loan debt collectors. At the time, I was in graduate school studying to get my MFA in Sonic Arts. My prof had given us an assignment to write an autobiographical piece. I had fun splicing the beginning voicemails alongside a recording of my fifth grade honors chorus singing a song called “We are the People of the 21st Century.” According to friend of mine TJ Foster at The Rodeo Mag, it became “a delicately textured, scathing indictment of financial inequality and of coming of age in a system that’s stacked against you.”

If our songs can be oracles, can our songs be spells? I frigging hope so (let’s #endstudentdebt please). I’m interested in more than healing myself and have always believed that art is inherently political. Let this be an oracle for a future more just education system in the US.

I have more songs coming that I can’t wait to share, and of course will keep sharing all about my creative practice along the way, because that’s my vibe.

In case you’re wondering, the healing is going well and I’m singing every day. I should be cleared to gig soon. As I hang in this chrysalis of healing, I’m testing out a couple of offerings and am looking for folks who would like to be a beta client. In both cases you get a discounted rate in exchange for offering feedback. Here’s what’s cooking:

Ever since I did the theme music for

off the grid ✿ clubhouse

, I’ve been itching to do more. I’m a projector (ahem, learning more about human design) and folks have been coming to me to work on some of there theme songs. I love it so so much and feel like I’m making spells for their podcasts by writing these tunes!

These lessons were born by a student coming to me and asking for support in making her EP. We spent four months writing, recording, and mixing her first few songs that she released to spotify last summer. Now that I’m healed, I can’t wait to do this with more folks!

That’s it from me! I’d love to hear how this resonates with you <3. Share what you think in the comments, and please share with a pal who might need to hear these words, too!

Your Friend,

Hattie

aka Melissa Kaitlyn Carter

hattiemusic.co