all of our dreams

What inspired the album? 

I was asked to write the song for the movie, “Uncharitable,” which is about the potential of the charitable sector to solve vexing social problems and eradicate the worst forms of human suffering. It is inspired by all of the heroes and heroines in that sector who work day in and day out in the trenches trying to address problems for which they are given inadequate resources to respond to at scale.

Is there a significance behind the song title?

All of Our Dreams.’ I think the chorus says it all - “Beyond the rise there lies a road, if we’ve got grace enough to see, where all despair and our unanswered prayers, turn into all of our dreams.’ It’s about having the grace to say no to old ways of thinking that no longer work, and to say yes to new ways of thinking that can work. Because that grace, or lack of it, is what’s standing between us and the world we really want — it’s what’s standing between us and all of our dreams. What is one key point that makes this song unique? That’s it’s the title song for a movie about a subject that no movie has ever tackled before. 

Do you have an interesting story about the songwriting or recording process?

I didn’t think I’d be able to write the song I was asked to for the movie. It’s a complicated subject—inadequate resources for nonprofit workers, the inadequacy of which stands in the way of them addressing social problems at scale. These are issues of behavioral and macro economics that don’t easily lend themselves to a song. But when I started to think about these people as heroes, and realized that the stakes are literally our greatest collective dreams, I found the simplicity and poetry that would make for a good song. 

What were the certain stylistic/production choices you made and why?

Pinar Toprak produced the song. She’s produced huge scores for big Hollywood Marvel blockbusters. A critical production decision was to have the song sung not just by me, but by nonprofit workers from around the world.

Do you have a favorite lyric from this track that you’d like to highlight?

So let us be all on our way, sister it isn’t too soon, brother it isn’t too late, we come from people who walked on the moon.” Are there any core themes prevalent in all of your songs or guiding principles that inform your music? I would say that the awesome mystery of our existence, juxtaposed against the simple things in life, with our immense human potential in the background, are the themes that inform a lot of my songwriting. 

How does this song make you, personally, feel?

Proud. It took us seven years to make this movie and a lifetime for me to do the work that led to it. I started out trying to get a record deal and ended up doing decades of work in philanthropy. This song sees those two worlds come together in a way I would never have thought possible

Moods?

Hope. Resilience. Inspiration. Humanity.