A new single is released tomorrow. It's called “By Amazing Grace“. This is a Brobdingnagian Bards collaboration with my friend and long-time bandmate, Andrew McKee, The Irish Bard.

“By Amazing Grace” was written for the In the ‘Verse podcast I made with Mikey Mason. We watched episodes of Firefly. Then we each wrote a brand new song for each episode. It was an amazing, inspiring project. My next CD, Selcouth, will feature quite a few of the songs from this podcast.

The song inspired by episode #13 of Firefly. “Heart of Gold” is an episode about strong women and toxic masculinity.

My song follows that theme. A woman is wooed by a man. He turns out to be an abuser. He is self-righteous and arrogant. He only lifts her up for as long as he's using her. Then he tries to make her seem weak and needy.

But much like Mandy in “Heart of Gold”, the women in my song stands up for herself. She fights back and puts him in his proper place, in the ground.

Right after I recorded this song, I realized it would sound great with Andrew McKee's mandolin. It's very folky. Andrew plays the melody for “Amazing Grace”. It runs throughout the song as a solemn reminder that truly righteous people don't have to put down and belittle others. It's by grace that we find righteousness.

And of course, the song ends with the very first verse of “Amazing Grace”, just like the end of the “Heart of Gold”. It too is a reminder that we may be blinded by evil people. But we can open our eyes and find strength.

Andrew adds recorder in this final verse. But then comes a special bonus. Jamie Haeuser sings along (my partner on How America Saved Irish Music). She adds a strong woman's voice to a song about standing up to toxic men.

I love this song. You can hear it in the latest episode of Pub Songs & Stories and Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. And of course, the song is out as a single tomorrow on all the streaming platforms.

And of course, you can listen for it on Selcouth when it is released in 2022.