Honestly, the two things have nothing to do with one another.

I woke up at 3 AM and can’t fall back to sleep. It’s 6:10 AM and pitch black outside. Summer is coming to an end and I hate it.

So what does one do when one can’t sleep? Clean out the email inbox that has been stacking up for months with promotional junk. Buy tickets to a few upcoming shows. And listen to the new Grace Potter song on repeat.

Have you heard it yet? If not, you’re missing out. Just watch.

Grace has been on a promotional tour this week to talk about her upcoming new record, Daylight. Read this. And watch this. She was thinking about no longer making music.

That actually makes my heart hurt.

The first time I saw Grace, I was coerced into it. I was visiting at home in NJ and Will Hoge happened to be playing this festival. My friend Pete was going and bribed me with access to a “members only” area where you could meet and greet with the artists.Pete said he’d get me into the meet and greet area, but that I had to stay the rest of the day to see Grace Potter play. I had no idea who she was, and I REALLY wasn’t interested. But I  REALLY wanted to say hi to Will. So I agreed.

And she FLOORED me.

I became Grace-obsessed. Her album, This is Somewhere, came out like a month later, and I played it for everyone and anyone who would listen. She came to Charlotte and played the Visulite to maybe 100 people, and I was a complete fan girl, front row, staring up at her and taking pictures on an actual camera.

A friend and I drove to Greenville once to see her. Grace came out on stage and looked like and angel, wearing this white dress and these chunky sandals with heels. And she said something like she’d been on a bus all day and hadn’t showered and she just needed to put-on a dress to feel like a girl. My friend and I belted out songs at the top our lungs that night…I was so happy.

Almost three years to the day after I first saw her, on the day my Mom told me she had cancer, I drove to Isle of Palms to see Grace play at The Windjammer. It was July. I remember being in that venue and dripping with sweat – July humidity in coastal South Carolina is no joke – and being so emotional about Mom, feeling every note that Grace sang. That night will live with me forever.

There are probably a dozen more Grace memories I could write about…For 12 years now, that woman’s music has been part of the soundtrack of my life.

I cannot imagine my world without her music.

Thanks for coming back, Grace. It’s so good to hear you sing.