Bifurcation in and of itself isn’t a rarity, but Suzie Brown’s story is a head-turner. Working as a part-time cardiologist at Nashville’s Vanderbilt, the singer-songwriter pursues a career in folk artistry during her off-time. The result of Brown’s committal to folk music during her weeks away from cardiology settles itself into the warm roots of Under the Surface, due out on 26 July. Ahead of the full album release, she is premiering “I Choose You” with For Folk’s Sake — the single drops this Friday, the 12th.
On “I Choose You”, Brown says… “People always ask me if I write songs about being a doctor. In some ways, this is the closest I’ve come. I see so many bad things happening to good people and I always think how unfair it is – how they didn’t choose to get sick. They didn’t choose to die. It applies to so many other situations as well – the horrible refugee crises – those people don’t choose to be born where they were born. People don’t choose their parents. When it comes down to it, there are very few things we can choose. But we can choose our partners. One day, after a particularly rough day, I came home and saw my husband’s face and it really hit me – ‘I choose you. That’s one thing I do get to choose, and I choose you.'”
Regarding the full album, she states, “This album was born as I was emerging from the fog of having young children. I felt so starved of my creative side. My first songs were all about heartache, and then I wrote a bunch of love songs. My last album was one primarily focused on family life, so when I started writing Under the Surface, I had already covered all that ground. I found myself digging even deeper to write about real life. This album is me, under the surface.”
Words by: Jonathan Frahm