Beyoncé
blog Shelly Peiken blog Shelly Peiken

Beyoncé

Way back when I first started writing songs, before there were algorithms and expectations and boxes we needed to check … I wrote something that had a spoken lyric. In my novice mind I thought of it as white-girl rap, if you will. Nobody suggested I didn’t have any business trying to be something I was not. I was just making a song. It felt right. It came out of me. I let it rip. No one was the boss of my creative spirit.

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Neil
blog Shelly Peiken blog Shelly Peiken

Neil

My older sister was a Neil Young/CSN fan and she played Four Way Street ALL THE TIME. Our bedrooms were separated by a thin sheet-rocked wall and I heard everything. “Cowgirl In The Sand” was my favorite track. Maybe I wanted to be somebody’s ‘cowgirl.’ Who knows. Someday I’d be old enough to “play this game.” Whatever game that was. What can I say? The song stirred me.

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Confessions.