SINGING IS LIKE BREATHING TO ME. It gives me wings, it fills my lungs with sky. And I'm all about the sky. I'm obsessed with stars of all kinds - actual, astrological and Hollywood old-style glamour. I adore the colour blue and love the curious fact that ... blue is the hottest flame. It is infinite to me, more brilliant than a rainbow. It's a state of being, a mindset. Perhaps it's my artistic background. Add the slightest touch of yellow and suddenly you have Turquoise, the blues with sunshine in it, the happiest colour of all.
Eleven is the most perfect number to me. Double that - 11:11 - and you're in another world. I came to music through the medium of words - as a lyricist and a poet with a story to tell. Songwriting is magic. I believe you get what you sing. And that's why I sing about ... love.
I have a few foibles - coffee is one of them. Double shot skinny cappuccino - or a Diva as I like to call it - and it must be freshly made, hot and in an actual cup NOT an upside down paper hat that will destroy the earth. Otherwise I'll eat anything - except for tripe. Or whale. Or anything endangered. I'm scaling back my love of meat and food that’s not locally grown to help heal the planet. It's the very least I can do. This is the great age of our struggle to re-embrace nature and I want to be there for every pulsing heartbeat of it.
Words matter. Without them, there is no song, just a piece of music and a singer with nothing to do. I love teaching. It's another way of performing and I delight in that sense of sharing what I know, of opening up the music box of the world to young songwriters.
My mantra is ... words have power; stories must be told; songwriters know how to tell them in a way that literally sings ... and so often in the company of other songwriters. Make a song with someone you love and your friendship will be bound up forever on a soul level that's hard to define. It could of course just be all that oxytocin you're releasing together - or it could be the sheer joy of sharing such an amazing creative experience. Either way it's the closest thing to magic I've ever known.
Susan Muranty May 2022
Photo Credit: The Sky Is My Country Too (Video) - Directed by Michael Carpenter
Despite the highs and lows of the last couple of years, I feel like my songwriting has been truly blessed. In fact, music has been officially saving me since January 2020.
In the past two years, I’ve released three number one debut singles on iTunes (Some Loving Left To Do, Stop Time With A Kiss and Silent Night, River Of Stars), been nominated for another two Hollywood Music in Media Awards (Some Loving and Stop Time), won the Spiritual Category of the Australian Songwriters Association (ASA) Competition with my dear friend Renee Jonas (pictured here) with our song Glorious Failures – and picked up a gong in the Lyrics Category of this year’s Tamworth Songwriters Association’s Contest for The Heart You Break The Hardest, a song I co-wrote with another beautiful friend from across the waves, Elena Giordano. Both these wins were dreams come true – and sparkled like jewels in the darkness of the pandemic.
Amazingly, however, it doesn’t stop there. With genius producer and multiple Golden Guitar winner Matt Fell, I’ve created a couple of albums’ worth of songs and performed in three beautiful videos under the direction of the fabulous Michael Carpenter, also putting together another gorgeous lyric video for Stop Time With A Kiss featuring my utterly gorgeous friends and family!!! I shot a beachside music clip for Stephen Hawking Wants You To with Cheap Video’s Jonathan Sequiera … and was thrilled when this very special song, which won so many awards and nominations in 2018, morphed into a dance remix co-created with the multi-talented Adie Hannan. In keeping with the Songwriting Never Lets Me Down vibe, it has been nominated as a Top 30 finalist in no less than four categories of the forthcoming ASA songwriting competition (so stay tuned!!!).
I’ve performed at Tamworth, sung live on 2TM radio, given literally dozens of radio interviews around Australia and my songs have made appearances on the AMRAP metro and country charts. My music has featured on the iTunes Best sellers page and even, in the case of my soon-to-be-released new album Turquoise, zipped to the top of the singer-songwriter pre-order page. I’ve been interviewed by print and digital publications around the world and my songs played on countless internet and community radio stations across the land. I’ve met some amazing people and had life-changing conversations about music and Australia, especially its beautiful beating country heartland, that will stay with me forever. And through it all – and best of all – those I love and who are loved by me, have cheered me on and encouraged me in ways that have taught me so much not just about the power of music to bring people together, but the power of heart.
Because this is the true gold in what I do.
I’m an independent musician which is genuinely astounding to me – and I feel so lucky to be able to pursue this epic, glorious, often storm-wrecked quest with every atom of love and passion in my veins and be answerable to no-one but my own muse. But I know it’s just a cry in the wind without someone to listen to it. And in the darkness of the last few years, you have listened to me and heard my stories and the whispers – and the joys – of my heart with such love and acceptance and understanding. It has given me such an incredible sense of light. And I hope you feel I have heard you too. Because this, more than anything, is why I was put on earth to sing and write music. It’s so our stories can be told, no matter who we are, and turned into the beauty they always deserved to be.
Thank-you for your love and support!!! Thank-you for the music!!! And thank-you for taking the time to travel with me on this crazy, amazing journey to Song Mountain. Every moment is a blast – and we still have some impressive ranges to climb 🙂 In the meantime, if you’d like to have a listen to what I’ve been up to over the last couple of years, pre-orders for my first full length album, Turquoise, are available now on iTunes and I’d love it if you could help me get into the charts on release day by following the link below and purchasing your copy as soon as you possibly can. It comes out on Monday June 13 (omg so exciting) and is my first full-length Album – 12 songs in all. It has an alternative country vibe but is also about the simple things – living passionately in the moment, honoring the earth and the people who are important to us – and choosing wherever possible to be happy. And guess who wrote the title track Turquoise with me? My oyster shot shooting, songwriting sister Renee!!! Watch this space for more exciting news to come!!!!
Susan Muranty, May 27, 2022
https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/turquoise/1618948334?app=itunes
Caption: Songwriting Sisters Celebrating With Oyster Shots at Tamworth 2022.
I feel so lucky to have been nominated twice in the prestigious Hollywood Music in Media Awards (HMMA) – in 2018 for the winning lyrics to my song Stephen Hawking Wants You To and this year (2019) for The Heart You Break The Hardest is Your Own. I was so delighted when I won last year … I truly didn’t expect to and it was the most amazing feeling standing up there in front of all those wonderful worldclass songwriters, producers, musicians and performers AND having to find the right words to accept my award as graciously as I could without falling off the podium. Lol.
The Awards Night will be held in just a few weeks’ time and I’m looking forward to reconnecting with songwriting friends old and new and getting to know LA, that magical City of Light, just a little better. Like all the other nominees, I’ll have my fingers crossed for a win, but honestly it’s the loveliest gift just to have been nominated for such a prestigious and competitive award two years in a row, to be recognised for all the hard work, the endless nights, the passionate dedication to craftsmanship that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary. I love what I do, whether I’m having to move creative mountains to find the right words for a fragment of lyric or catching an entire song like a lucky star in my lap – which does occasionally happen. And no matter how high – or how far into uncharted creative territory – it takes me, I’m the luckiest girl in the world just to be able to say that.
Thank-you HMMA!! And thank-you to everyone for supporting me on this wild songwriting journey of mine. I’m loving every crazy minute.
Susan Muranty