It’s January 2014 and I am driving home from work excited for a weekend with my husband and one year old baby girl. This super catchy track is playing and I turn it up louder. It’s always the sign of a serious tune when you hear it for the first time and are instantly hooked. The beat is funky, the voice is amazing but what gets me the most is the lyrics – “No I don’t have money on my mind, I do it for the love”. I hope this guy with the amazing voice means what he sings. Even better – I hope he wrote it. Now that would be special. Later that night I look up the song and realise the guy is called Sam Smith. That’s it – I need to get myself some of that music. He is such talent and also – he did write the song. Genius. How lucky is he that he is so passionate about what he does?! No matter what he just wants to sing and touch people with music. It is clear that any money he makes is simply a huge bonus.
I see a post on facebook a few months later – Sam is singing here in Edinburgh at The Liquid Rooms that night. Gutted, I would love to be there. I so should have got tickets.
After travelling the world for a year in 2006 to 2007 I did something I said I would never do. I got a tattoo. I have nothing against them, I just never had the urge for one and am not a fan of needles. I felt so passionately about the word passion and thankfully still do. It means everything to me. What is life without passion? To cut a long story short I wanted Passion engraved on my arm for life. I got it in Thai, one of my favourite places from the year away. The place where I realised I had to make some serious changes in my life before it was too late. I needed to change the direction in my life. I am so grateful for this realisation.
Sam is one of those people in life that encompasses the word passion. He is clearly so in love with music and his voice is one of the best I have heard. What an incredible combination. It’s now November 2014 and the guy is getting seriously famous. Gutted – the chances of him playing in The Liquid Rooms again are slim. He is taking the world by a storm. With baby number 2 due any minute, I realise that it’s going to be hard to get tickets to see him live anytime soon. Life is about to get hectic. Thankfully, the hubs adores his music and voice too – I play him a lot. Bonnie at two years old says “Mummy can we have Sam”. Her current favourite song is ‘Like I can’. As ‘In the Lonely Hour’ is played all the time in our house, Latch acoustic naturally becomes my song for baby Charlie once he arrives. All he seems to do it latch. The track instantly calms him down when I play it. It’s also a lovely song that I enjoy singing to him.
The months roll in, having two kids under 3 years old is so crazy busy. I see that Sam is playing at T in the Park – so close to us but it’s not looking likely. Life is too manic and childcare is not readily available! We do the next best thing and watch his concerts on catch up in the house over a few drinks on a Saturday night. Listening to how he talks about music is very inspiring. One of his stories sticks with me now. He talks about how he tried and tried to get noticed. So much so that he felt forced to change. It wasn’t until he realised that the best thing to do was stay real, true to himself and focus on his passions. This is when the magic happened and he made the best music.
The moral of this post is that if you do things with passion – focus your life on people and things that make you truly happy then life on this earth will be one awesome ride. Thanks to Sam – clearly a beautiful soul with the voice to match it x
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