THEA: I think I wrote this song when I was in my early twenties, so it’s actually older than dirt.

I sang it with a couple of bands, then recorded a demo of it in Seattle with some great musicians, two of whom have been my nearly lifelong friends: Wayne Cockfield on guitar and Jerome Gates on bass. (My sincere apologies to everyone else who did such an excellent job playing on it—I can’t seem to identify them today because that’s just how long it’s been. I can’t even remember if I played keys on it myself. Hahaha…wow.)

Then I forgot all about it. It collected about three inches of dust, until one day recently,  Chad reminded me of the Seattle demo that I apparently gave him over 20 years ago.

I thought it might work if it was just recycled, so I asked him to upload the Seattle recording to Suno to give it a makeover of sorts. Suno tracked it very well—it was quite good—but we felt the song itself still sounded too dated. We wanted it to present like current R&B instead of the super-energized sounding funk that it had been, and there were a few lines of lyrics that needed a refresh too…because they honestly sounded like a 21 year-old wrote them decades ago.

Enter the magic of Chad. He fixed a couple of lines right up and cooked up an R&B recipe for it with a new groove, melody, and changes. And there it is. Let’s Get Serious, 2026.

Everything old is new again.

THEA: This song is our collaboration with the beautiful and immensely talented Michelle Pare, a vocalist/keyboardist I’ve known nearly my entire life.

(I also refer to Michelle in my comments under “Another Song or Two”…she was my partner in the acoustic duo I mentioned there.)

A quick bit of personal background:

Michelle had a tremendous impact on my life; I’m not sure I would have had a career in music without her. By the time I met her when I was 13, I had already made money performing and I had already been on the radio—but it was Michelle who partnered with me and pursued with me every opportunity that eventually led to everything I accomplished over the years. I was an awkward and somewhat disadvantaged kid, and she was anything but: Michelle was probably the most popular girl in our high school. But she saw something in me, and we became best friends, inseparably linked together despite the decades I spent on the road and in Seattle.

Some years ago, we were talking about songwriting and she sang her hook idea to me over the phone: “If only you knew”. That was it. Four words.

The thing is, I never forgot the four words, and I never forgot the melody she sang.

So this summer, we worked together with Chad to turn it into this song.

One composition note: Once we had most of our story/lyrics/form and the basic chord changes crafted, I mentioned to Chad that my only problem was the redundancy in the chord changes…I felt fatigue because though it’s a pretty standard R&B progression, I’d heard enough of it by the end of the first chorus. The final product has two slightly different pre-choruses that are each a nice change up and—at least to me—made all the difference in the world. I love the sound of the G#m7/A (it appears in “You Are Everything” by the Stylistics; you may recognize the interesting sound of it in the first pre-chorus), so I’m glad that found its way into the tune.

Michelle, my lifelong friend…thank you for writing this one with us. I love you. Always.

THEA: Some of you may be familiar with the incredible rock and soul vocalist/bassist Glenn Hughes; I have long regarded his as one of the greatest voices of our time. He’s as fantastic a soul singer as he is a rock singer (take a listen to his cover of “I Was Made To Love Her” with Stevie Salas).

We had the pleasure of meeting him at one of his shows, and it was my privilege to be able to tell him that I thought so. So I crossed that off my bucket list.

Glenn, like a great many people, has struggled to overcome addiction. In his case, the struggle was quite public.

This isn’t his story, but he is the person who inspired us to write the song.

One of our favorite Glenn Hughes songs is called “Talk About It” (“I don’t want to talk about it” is the hook), so I suggested to Chad that we write the song about someone who is at his breaking point, and wants to talk about it…to God. He doesn’t know if he can change, but he just wants to talk about it. He knows he needs God, and he finds himself ready to take his first, small step.

I suggested the hook and title.

As usual, Chad took the topic and ran with it. What you’re hearing here is about 75% lyrics he wrote before I made my changes and suggestions.

This song was going to be done in a rock style, until we did it in a rock style. We instantly knew it wasn’t working, so I asked Chad to try it as a Take Six (or Brian McKnight)-style ballad. And just as quickly as we knew when it wasn’t working, we knew that this was.

CHAD: This one is a bit cynical. I’ve been dealing with consultants for much of my career, and it gets pretty annoying listening to corporate double-talk all the time.

I was having one morning where I was getting stressed about it more than usual, so I put pen to paper while in a meeting. It was a LOT more cynical and biting, until Thea and I sat down with it. We cleaned it up, toned down some of the more angry parts, and we ended up with a good song about corporate communications.

She also changed the hook. I don’t remember what it was before - something about “Market Value”, I think - but she definitely made this into something great.

Thea, is there anything you’d like to add?

THEA: I don’t remember it being all that “biting” and I certainly don’t remember it being “angry” (though yeah, you were not happy that morning) but…it probably was. I’m just used to your east coast style of communicating. [LAUGHS]

One of my favorite edits here was nicknaming the first guy “Wingtips”.

THEA: So crazy that this almost wasn’t done in this style. (Don’t ask what we first thought we’d do with it…I don’t want to admit it now. [LAUGHS])

I’m an R&B singer and the first time I heard Jonah Nilsson (of Dirty Loops) sing, I felt like I was going to collapse—because it just doesn’t get any cooler than that.

So here comes Chad, producing this song in this style—AFAIK, he wasn’t really thinking about Loops—just to try it out. When we got to add the Henrik Linder (again, Dirty Loops)-sounding bass solo, we knew we weren’t going to touch it again.

One of our more unusual topics (a cynical concierge…brilliant, Chad!) that needed only a little polish and a few fresh lines from me…and I don’t think we’ll ever top this one.

(Speaking of polish, the lyric “polished answers” sounds like “Polish dancers” when you sing it at this tempo…ask me how I know. So “practiced answers” it was.)

Chad?

CHAD: This one was fun. I’ve traveled a lot over the course of my career, constantly staying in hotels - everything from a Hampton Inn overnight on the way to some other place, all the way to staying a Ritz Carlton long-term working overseas. After a while, you get to know the people that work there. If you’re a people-watcher, you tend to observe and learn things.

I thought this might be a song in some other style - I don’t remember what style - but we eventually stumbled on this style as we were experimenting with different arrangements.

Honestly, I think from an arrangement perspective this one is probably my favorite. I have others that are favorites for other reasons. But this one? It’s just… fun.