About

Good Intentions is another song that almost made it onto the Ocean Inside of Me album. We ended up choosing She’s Not Good for Me instead since it fit the narrative better. But I’ve always loved this song—it’s one of my favourites to play and sing. I even made a Midnight Session of it for my patrons because I really wanted it to be recorded in some way. So when it made it onto Rescue Songs, I was absolutely delighted, and I feel like we really managed to give it the atmosphere it deserves with the acoustic guitars Dominic and I played, the gentle cello Harley played, and the beautiful piano notes Michael Stephenson added.

But where did this song come from? I wrote it at almost 2 a.m. years ago after a bit of a heavy day, where I didn’t manage to show up for the people I love the way I wanted to. It dives into the deep tiredness and frustration that come with having to fight against oneself every day when struggling with depression. There’s also an element of shame and resignation—that painful feeling of being disappointed in oneself for falling into the same patterns over and over instead of committing and following through with all those good intentions that are so easy to say but so hard to put into action. Even though blaming oneself is never constructive, writing this song helped me get closer to accepting those darker moments and aspects of myself instead of pushing them away.

Sometimes our shadows need to be heard so we can let them go. Whenever I feel low, I turn to songs like this one, sing them, cry a little, and let them go. My shadows might not always believe me, but I come to them with good intentions. :) I hope this song can be a good friend to you as it has been to me.