Not Better With Neil Davis

Singer, songwriter, and pianist Neil Davis wrote his single "Not Better" after the sudden death of his father in 2017. We're talking about the power of music to bring us back from a devastating loss as well as how we can best conjure up memories of loved ones when they're no longer around. Neil is also giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the grief thoughts that created his song, "Not Better."

Transcript

I'm so excited that you're joining me for the podcast coming back today because we have had a couple of musicians on the show who have written songs in tribute to grief.

So I'm really stoked to have you on to share your story of your inspiration for the song,

Not Better,

As well as how your musical journey has changed since your loss occurred.

So won't you share your story with us?

Well thank you so much,

First off,

For even having me on.

I am so grateful for you and this podcast.

So thanks for existing,

For starters.

But yeah,

My grief story,

Or my lost story,

Is that I unexpectedly lost my dad in the summer of 2017 due to just an instant cardiac arrest.

And it just came as a total shock and a total surprise to me and my family.

Just kind of really put a stop to just a lot of things at once.

It was just an overwhelming loss.

I was really close with my dad and something like losing them in an instant with no warning was just a really big hit to me emotionally and all of the things that come along with it.

So I,

At the time,

Was preparing to release new music and had a bunch of plans and dates set and things to do for new music that I was releasing.

And after it happened,

I definitely took a big break to start my own processing of what happened and the healing that was coming along with it and the shock was starting to slowly wear off after a while.

But through that,

I was able to get back to music and found myself putting two and two together through a song that I recently finished called Not Better,

Which I released and put out there in March.

That was the first song that came to me since the loss after many days and months at the piano,

Singing and playing and trying to figure out what I was going through.

But yeah,

In a nutshell,

Or a very long nutshell,

That's been my grief story.

I would say that music's been a very important part of that for me.

I think that's really significant because so many listeners,

And I think so many humans in general,

Have creative pursuits,

Creative outlets,

Creative hobbies.

And so to have grief roll through,

Oftentimes these creative outlets are the one thing that not remains the same per se,

Because even our creativity changes in grief.

But it's something that we can continue to go back to.

I want to share with you something that I circled over and over again.

I take notes as I visit with my guests on the show,

Is the word instant,

Instant,

Instant,

Instant as it relates to the loss of your dad.

And also shock,

I underlined in big letters.

And can you share more with us about maybe the moment that you received the news and then the first maybe days or weeks after the loss of your dad and trying to negotiate,

Holy shit,

What is life like now?

Yeah.

Wow.

I mean,

I will never forget getting that call.

Funny enough,

This is so cliche sounding of a musician,

But I was actually home sitting at my piano,

Just doing some new stuff and just messing around on the piano.

And my brother-in-law called me and I answered the phone and he was like,

Hey,

Your dad had a heart attack.

And that's all we knew of it at that point.

And they were like,

He's on the way to the hospital right now.

Do you want to meet us there or do you want me to come get you or whatever?

And at that moment,

My entire body went numb.

I would say my legs went numb.

And I just had a very strong feeling about this heart attack just not being a light heart attack.

I had a just weird gut feeling that this was not a good thing at all.

So yeah,

I went completely numb in shock and like threw on any,

It was summer,

It was July.

I literally threw on a pair of sandals and he just picked me up and we drove over to the hospital.

And when I got there,

My dad was just completely unconscious and being treated with every machine,

I guess you could imagine.

And seeing that was horrible.

And I remember,

Like you said,

Like,

Holy crap,

How am I going to do this?

That went through my head.

But weirdly enough,

Within the first two weeks of that time period,

My mind and soul went into this super hero mode of like,

We're going to get through this,

I'm going to get through this,

We're going to talk to the doctors,

We're going to get all the notes,

Everything's going to be fine.

We're going to figure this out.

And then slowly but surely,

The bad news came at the end of that was that he wasn't going to survive.

And it's just,

I think I'm just now a year and a half in able to process it because at that point,

I was like,

Okay,

I got this.

It almost seemed like easier to handle in that moment for some reason.

And then as it wore off like a month or two later,

I just completely went into like severe grief and obviously,

The anxiety and depression that comes along with it was definitely there.

But I think that initial shock of like,

Yeah,

He's not coming back was just,

It took a while to swallow for me because just that initial,

The doctors telling you that,

It was just overwhelming for me and everyone that was,

My family and everyone that was there.

But yeah,

I would say instantly,

I went into this like,

I'm going to be there for my mom and my family and we're going to do this and we kind of kept it going and we were okay.

And then I feel like I fell apart slightly after,

Like a month or two after I was just finally able to really feel every,

He's not coming back.

I think in the moment,

And I'm remembering this more now,

You almost feel like,

You almost feel like,

And I'm sure listeners can relate,

You almost feel a sense of denial of like,

Oh no,

I'm going to feel like they're still here.

No,

They're going to come back.

I'll see them tomorrow.

You almost go into this weird telling yourself like it's okay because I'm going to see them tomorrow.

But when you really start to realize that they're not coming back is when it hits hard.

So yeah.

Absolutely.

And sometimes it's like the smallest things that remind us that they're not here anymore.

Like you get up and there's no coffee made and that was like their job in the house and you're like,

Oh my God,

Now they're really gone.

Or it's these larger things of like holidays or special occasions where there's now an empty chair at the table and you're like,

Wow,

That really drives it home.

That was a huge one for us.

I mean,

Coming from a big Italian family and he was kind of like the chef of the family.

He always did holidays and Christmas was huge and Easter was huge for him and we always hosted things at our family's house.

He was just like a very big part of those traditions and his presence and everything was very loud and fun and he was very lively.

So the first Christmas,

Just last Christmas,

I like barely could sit at the table.

It was just the worst,

Just kind of the worst thing.

I know that in terms of your music,

You've been featured in a lot of places you've recently performed at Carnegie Hall and if I'm not mistaken,

You've also been on the Today Show as well.

Yeah,

My song was on the Today Show,

Smile.

So I'm wondering if any of your grief ever made it to like a public space or a public platform before the release of Not Better and maybe what that was like as well to have because I know 90 to 95% of the world gets the quote unquote privilege of grieving with some semblance of privacy but I wonder if that was still true for you or if you put up any boundaries or borders of what you will and will not share online.

I found that very soon after,

It was sort of hard for me to put it out there just to give myself and my family and him some privacy.

I also,

I think in general there's this pressure,

Especially on social media,

To constantly have this perfect or happy or certain type of messaging that you give across and I do like to keep things positive.

So when this happened,

I just felt like,

I mean I wasn't even so much concerned about social media after this happened so I think I took a break in general but there was some pressure to keep things quiet.

I just wanted to process it for myself and wanted to,

I don't know,

Just kind of have a moment with myself and with everything that happened but I did feel pressure around I guess situations where if I were performing,

I didn't want them to feel uncomfortable knowing that I had just lost my dad and then I didn't want to show up being the person that lost their dad.

It was just this thing of I almost had to break that wall by starting to talk about it more and be a little bit more open versus hey,

Everything's okay.

I'm here.

Instead,

And it was a growing moment for me too to be like,

Okay,

This is what I went through.

This is a big part of my life and it's a big part of life in general so I think it's okay to talk about it and share aspects of it that you're willing to share so I grew into talking about it more and I would say now I'm finally like it's really part of my story now and it's part of,

Like I said,

Part of life so I've been coming to terms with it more.

That makes a lot of sense because I feel like there is a lot of societal pressure.

I mean especially as a musician,

I grew up playing piano for the first 14 years of my life and there's this pressure that music is like a joyful thing and like a celebration and I think people forget that music also comes from oftentimes a really dark or heartbroken space and so being able to speak about grief as someone who is a performer is really cool.

I think it's a unique window of opportunity to be like this is what's actively happening right now and I am creating in the midst of it.

Yeah,

For sure and what an outlet to be able to have to get that out.

I feel like we're lucky in a big way to have music and an instrument to funnel those feelings that are so heavy on us and I felt that for,

You know,

I've been feeling that but I felt that really,

You know,

That was a lot of like the beginning process of grieving and I remember sitting with a manager who I was just chatting about music stuff with and she was like,

I think there's a lot there for you to dig into right now like since this happened.

Don't even worry about like your old,

Like the previous stuff you've recorded that I was gearing up to release.

She was like,

Just like it's cool to give that like a minute.

I think you've got some other stuff here to dive into and when I finally like accepted that,

In the beginning I tried to like just kind of like generically like start writing and like things like that and it was nothing was coming out about it.

Like there were no words about,

You know,

This kind of heavy loss that,

You know,

Losing a parent and like instantly losing someone like in the blink of an eye,

You know,

Due to cardiac arrest.

Like there was just not there were there was nothing I felt like I could say to even like capture that but it started happening more so like as a journal entry and it was like I started journaling like almost little like letters that were sort of to him and it was a way for me to like to process what had happened and then I started turning those little entries into clips of songs like with chords behind it at the piano and then I found myself like really going through my grieving process like sitting at the piano putting these lyrics to the melodies that I was creating and it really in a way I felt like my heart lifting like as I was doing it because I felt like I had finally connected to a way to like get this sort of pain out and this like grief and the sadness out which was not better.

That was like the first thing that came out about it.

Can you say more about that process because I am hyper curious now about this heart lifting sensation.

I've experienced this in my own grief in my own ways but that's the first time I've heard it phrased that way.

It's almost like when,

You know,

We're carrying this grief like it's just like for me I look at it as like it kind of like it feels like it builds up over time.

If I know in like through the past year if I didn't release it through music or even like crying at some point it just was building up so I felt like when I connected at the piano singing and writing this song that lift started to happen almost like mimicking as if you were to like cry or like hysterically cry and the feeling of getting that out.

That's a feeling that I get when a song like clicks for me at the piano and that clicked during like writing this new single about him and it happened I think just more by like it feels almost like it's a meditation when you're like writing and playing and doing a song that way but the best way I could describe it is like you're just surrendering to this like current feeling and like whatever emotion you're gonna get out and in my case I was saying like I'm waiting all this time to get better,

I'm not better.

They say it just takes time but I'm waiting.

All of those lines were just like these natural things that I felt like during grieving like people were like it's just gonna take time,

It's just gonna take time and that ended up being like a reoccurring line in the song and then I'm waiting all this time to get better,

I'm not better.

It was like this theme to myself that I and kind of telling him too like,

Dad,

I'm getting emotional for a second.

It was like telling him,

Dad,

Come on,

Work with me here,

I'm trying to get better and I'm not.

So yeah,

So then that's how the title of the song came too.

So yeah,

The process.

And it does bring up,

I got chills as soon as you said that because sometimes we want like I'm doing everything right,

Why is it?

Why do I feel like I'm slogging around or not making any progress and I just love how you phrase that again because I've never heard it phrased that way before,

Come on,

Work with me on this.

And this is a thousand percent a leading question,

But how are you coming to terms with not being better?

Because I think as grievers,

We for the most part,

We get to this place where we're like,

I don't have to be better,

I'm not supposed to be better and that's just like the nature of grief.

Yeah,

It blows my mind because people,

You just hear about it,

You just hear about these things but when it happens to you,

And this goes back to getting the notice at the hospital about it,

I put a timeframe on it,

I was like,

Okay,

I'm just going to feel like this for a month and then I'm going to feel better.

And then when it started to not go away,

Which was like months,

That's when I started really having to dig in and do the writing and connecting with my instruments and stuff like that again to really try and.

.

.