Episode 4 - Olivia Farabaugh

My conversation with singer/songwriter Olivia Farabaugh. The conversation covers growing up Palmyra, PA right next to Hershey and spending some time with NBC's The Voice! She talks about her years battling Chronic Inflammatory Response Syndrome while building a career in Nashville. Now healed from CIRS, Olivia continues to create her music, lives in a tiny house, and she and her husband are preparing for the birth of their first baby!! 

www.oliviafarabaugh.com 

The 10. (In no particular order, Just listen to them all!)

1.  Olivia Farabaugh

   2.    Grace Graber

   3.   Alex Jude

  4.    Jolie Wing

  5.    Micah Christopher

  6.    Cross Gray

  7.    River And Rail

  8.   The Arcadian Wild

  9.   Daniel Spriggs

 10.  Amanda Nolan 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The rest of the podcast. Episode 4. Well Happy May. Happy Pollen Overload. And Happy Schizophrenic. What's the weather like today season? Is it 40 degrees? Is it 80 degrees? I don't know. It's just yes and yes. It's just that time of the year. My guest on this edition. Here's what I have to say about her infectious joy. And I think infectious joy is greatly needed in this world. And my guest on this episode is a great A example of joy that rubs off on you. You can hear it in her music too. Her story includes struggle, no doubt, but her perseverance and determination and lessons learned speak of her faith and hope beyond struggle. I'm really glad you get to sit in on the conversation with this Pennsylvania girl now calling Nashville home, singer, songwriter Olivia Farabaugh. This is the Rest, the podcast. I'm so glad to finally have the chance to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

Ah, I'm so grateful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

And um, well, you're welcome. One of the things I do like to do is I like to just let's just go back, let's start from the beginning. Let's talk about where you grew up and those formative years for you.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

Yes. So I'm originally from Palmyra, Pennsylvania, which is right next to Hershey. No one usually knows where Palmyra is, but if I say the chocolate, then everybody knows.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Everybody knows.

SPEAKER_04 1:34

Right? Everyone knows chocolate town. So that's where I grew up. And I started singing in the choir and and everything like that. But whenever I started playing guitar was the summer going into fourth grade. And that is when my love for music just really took off and the songwriting started from there.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Fourth grade. That's yeah, that's kind of that seems early now. I've you sometimes you hear of people that are playing guitar when they're three years old or something like that, right? Which sounds even crazier, but that's that's pretty young.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Yeah, my mom, she always wanted us to play the piano, me and my siblings. And so she had a piano in the living room, and I tried, but my the notes I just found, my old notes from my piano teacher, my mom still had, and I would just play by like ear. I wouldn't actually read the notes. Right. I just got so impatient. I'm like, no, I don't want to, which now looking back, I wish I could read music. But so I kind of quit. I was like, I'm done with this. Like, I just want to do something else. And I picked up a guitar in my cousin's room the one day, and I'm like, I could go for this. And that's when I just I loved it. I love just the rhythm of it and really being able to like feel, you know, the acoustic guitar, especially. Like you can just feel the vibrations of the strings in the body, and it's just like it's just such a beautiful connection with music.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

When did you decide that you wanted, though, to be pursuing music the way that you pursue it now?

SPEAKER_04 3:09

That has been quite a journey, honestly. I the first time I ever really played in front of anybody was my fifth grade talent show that we had.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

And you were telling me earlier that's when the microphone fell.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

First time playing in front of anybody.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Which could kill the career, which for a lot of people would be that's it, I'm done.

SPEAKER_04 3:29

Right.

unknown 3:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

And I saw it falling and it's it fell, smacked my knee, and rolled across the stage. And I just kind of just kept on like playing and singing, and then someone finally came and put it back. But my mom was like, I knew you could roll with the punches when that happened. Like she always would encourage me with that. It was so sweet. But yeah, I I knew that like I really enjoyed that, you know, part of it. But I was always like not wanting to like be in the spotlight. I always felt really uncomfortable in the sense of like, you know, saying, Oh, I want to do music. And it's funny because I found this paper, I think I was in like sixth grade, and I wrote down, What do you want to be when you grow up? And I wrote down a musician and a hairstylist. That was like my two things. And it and then I went to beauty school after high school. And even then, I was playing at like some coffee shops, but I wouldn't tell anybody that I was playing. And my one friend found out, she's like, Why are you not telling anybody that you're playing here? And I just was so bashful about it. And I felt like, I don't know, just kind of like silly being like, Oh, that's what I want to do. Cause that was like the, you know, classic thing, like, oh yeah, you want to go and be this big thing, you know, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

You didn't want people to think you were not dedicated to beauty.

unknown 4:46

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

And I was like, oh, it's just something I do on the side. But like, there was this like always stirring in my heart of like, what would that be like? But it was such a foreign thing. There wasn't anybody that I knew in the area or in my family, friends, no one that was like, oh yeah, I want to pursue music. So, in the reality of, I didn't even know what that looked like.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Um, but it wasn't until in 2015, like literally, just the Lord is the only way that I can even understand how the opportunity to be on the voice uh season 10, I was a contestant on there, and I got to the blinds, didn't get on a team, so that's okay. But I got to spend three weeks in LA with a bunch of musicians in the hotel. And I and that was like, okay, this this I recognize this is actually something that like I want to do.

SPEAKER_00 5:36

That was an experience that you went through, and there is there were lessons learned in that, right?

SPEAKER_04 5:42

A hundred percent. And like really, I feel like that was kind of the turning point of like, okay, how can I do this? Like, how do I actually do this? And so that's when I started really gigging out hard. Um, but at that time I was pursuing country music, and that's just kind of what I I fell into. That was very prominent. Everyone's listening to country music where we were, and so I I just kind of fell into that space, playing in bars, restaurants, and stuff like that. And so um, that was kind of the world that I lived in. I was doing hair during the days and then going playing gigs at night, and um, then eventually just doing hair, it started dwindling down because I started traveling more. Yeah in the salon that I was at, they were so supportive. Um, but they just like let me change my hours all the time, but it just got less and less.

SPEAKER_00 6:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:28

So then I started going full-time music after that.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Okay. But this is still in Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_04 6:33

Yeah, yeah, still in Pennsylvania. And I around that time, I made a trip to Nashville and I went to this like songwriter's camp thing. And um then I I remember asking the question I'm like, okay, you know, if I don't live here, how often do you recommend that I come? And someone was like, We need to be down here at least every other month. And I was like, Okay. So that's what I did for a couple years. Wow. I I hauled a camper down, and so me and my dog Tank, we would come down, stay in the camper for a week, you know, week and a half, and we'd do rights, and we'd do rights. Tank Tank actually was in some rights with me.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Does Tank have any writing credits?

SPEAKER_04 7:16

He should he should have his own PRO. Like he was he was actually in a lot of rights that we did in the camper. Um, but yeah, that's just like what we did, and then COVID hit.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 7:25

And so that kind of changed things around. But uh around that time is when I had in my heart to move to Nashville.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

And I'm glad that you just told me that story about finding out somebody told you, oh, you need to be there every other month. So by golly, that's what you did.

unknown 7:42

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_04 7:43

Yeah, I was like, all right, you said it, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Because people don't don't know this side of things, and that's one of the reasons that I'm doing this. I want to hear those stories. I want people to tell me this is what it takes to do this thing. And I don't think people understand that it means I get my I get a camper and I drive down from Pennsylvania every other month with my dog tank. And how long are you spending here at in each one of those? Yeah, a week?

SPEAKER_04 8:11

Yeah, it would it would range, it'd be like a week, sometimes like 10 days. It would, I think that was the longest one that I did. But I try to book as much as I can while I was in town. Um, but it was cool because I I got to understand a little bit more of the culture of Nashville, you know, and I am still learning. I mean, it's always a learning thing, but it was cool whenever we moved here. I didn't feel so foreign to what things looked like, at least.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Was it hard to um develop relationships, friendships at that point in time? I mean, we were coming to Nashville, but what were you then doing when you were coming here?

SPEAKER_04 8:51

Yeah, so I was booking rights as much as I could, and then writers rounds, especially. But then as I came here more often, I was able to get some gigs um at some like local bars and stuff too, which ended up that that that hub opened up two different bars. So I I kind of got into this circuit of these three different bars um that I would play at. And so it was hard, like with relationships, but it was also sweet because I was only in town for so long. So people would be like, okay, I I gotta make sure that we get like a coffee or we get a ride in, you know, because you're only here for a little bit. So it kind of worked out in a sense, where um I was able to pack so much in because people knew that there wasn't like all this ample time.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

But it it's definitely different now living here. And really, whenever we started, like you know, just it was probably a year after living here, we felt like we really found community.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:47

You know, we had friends, we had co-writers, like stuff like that, like other artists and stuff that we were friends with. But it really wasn't until like a year, it felt like the Lord was really just sanctifying us in a kind of an isolation in some regards, you could call it that, of just trying to find like contentment with him uh before we found all these people or whatever. And and so that was a fun journey.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Let's talk about then the decision to move here. Now I want to and let's let's go back a little bit. You're married, yes, and so it wasn't just you and Tank anymore.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

It was uh I can't remember uh Caden. Caden is your husband, Caden's your husband. So Caden had to decide he had to buy in.

SPEAKER_04 10:36

Uh-huh. It was so wild. So we had been together, I think it was probably like two years, and I was going back and forth, you know, between Nashville, maybe it was like a year and a half or so, but then we were like, okay, we're serious now, you know, and then he proposed, and then we get married. Like, I'm like, okay, right. It's not just a decision that's now affecting me. And so he we both have our families in Pennsylvania, like, and everyone's really all still there for the most part. The farthest away is like two and a half hours.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 11:11

Um, and so I have a little sister who's 13 years younger than me, and like me and her were just like, you know, such such buds. And so it kind of the thought of moving even broke my heart, you know, of like, oh, like there's so many things. She's a senior now in high school, so she's gonna be graduating in June. I'm like, there's so many just pieces of life that we wanted to be so present for. And so that was like a really hard decision for both of us, but I feel like I started feeling that pull more, especially as I was traveling back and forth. I felt more peace about making that decision to move. And Caden was like, honestly, I don't know. Like he still wasn't up, he wasn't there yet. And so one day he, you know, really felt like he wanted to go to school to be a nurse anesthetist. He was a nurse at the time, he was in the ICU. Um, and it was during COVID, and he came home, and he's like, if I find a school within a drivable distance of Nashville, then like let's do this, like randomly, out of the blue. I'm like, what? And so, of course, like we looked it up, and sure enough, there was one in Madison, Tennessee, 30 minutes, and we were like, okay, we're gonna do this. But at this time, there was another piece of my story that was going on in the background was I got sick with um chronic illness. And so we were living in a home that had black mold that I didn't know about. Okay, and I yeah, didn't know that was a dangerous thing until all this.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

No, that's yeah, I've heard other stories.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

Yeah, it was crazy, and it was like I I got so sick. Caden didn't get sick at all. Um, he was fine, but I I was just battling infection after infection, and just it it wasn't going away. I felt like I was getting the flu like all the time, right? You know, that's just kind of like how it felt. And so it was my mom who put it together. She's like, it was only after you moved into this house. Well, here I have a gene that it can lay dormant in your body your entire life until this perfect storm of toxin exposure. So for me, it was living in that house and it's called chronic inflammatory response syndrome. And so once this gene was activated, my body couldn't process out toxins anymore as it normally should. And so they just kind of recirculate in the body and and cause this wide range of symptoms. And so you're kind of chasing all the symptoms, but not getting to the root. And so that's what we were doing for years. So all of this was happening like simultaneously. Like we felt this call to move to Nashville. I was traveling back and forth while I was like ill and um just trying to because I was I'm a very like determined type of person where I'm like, if I feel called to it, I mean, unless the Lord literally comes down like, hey, you're not supposed to do this. Like, and if there's peace on that, and I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do everything that I can to to make it happen. And so it was it was a battle um to, you know, obviously try to listen to my body as much as I could, but also like if I don't do this thing, something inside of me is dying. Like that's like this feeling that I had. And so we were just kind of in this weird shift of trying to figure out what's going on, getting to the root of the illness. And that was actually a big reason why I traveled with the camper because once we found out it was mold. Well, now if I come and I stay in an Airbnb here that has mold, yeah, you know, it could be totally fine for somebody else, but for me, it would send me into a spiral. So that's when we really got the camper and tried to have a safe environment to travel in. And so it was it was a wild time.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Man, that's had to be crazy.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:13

I don't ever think. I don't have really much of benefits to my baby. I'm broke. But fill it with your spirit, and I know you can do something with it. Do you feel it's like your glory? If I elevat the bottom, where you lead out by the window to the top, I'll shine your life from the ground up.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

How do you get past that and heal?

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Yeah, so once I found out what it was, it's SERS for short. It's honestly, it was one of those things that I had some medications I heavily relied upon uh to help detox the way that my body needed it and also keep down some of the inflammation. But I spent years I could not get off these medications. So once we moved to Nashville, I was already on those medications.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 16:18

Um, so but still my symptoms were greatly affected by environments I would go into. So the biggest way that you can help heal from it is staying out of these toxic environments and giving your body time. But as a musician, you're going in to these bars, restaurants, venues, and it's like you get what you get, like a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Especially in Nashville, right? Yeah. If you're talking about Broadway, ooh boy.

SPEAKER_04 16:44

Oh, yeah. So I ended up like, again, I'm like, okay, if I feel called to this, how can we get around it? So I actually wore this like respirator mask and this ionizer on my neck to try to help clear the air around me. I would play um writers' rounds and I would keep the mask on while I wasn't singing and the other artists were singing, and I'd take the mask off, sing my song, put it back on. And it worked out okay whenever like everyone was wearing masks for COVID, and then everyone stopped. And I'm like, here I am. I'm still I'm still doing it, you know. But so that was just a challenge. But honestly, um, that's such a part of my testimony, is the Lord did just heal my body on October 11th of 2023. And it's a story that I'm I'm so grateful to be able to share.

SPEAKER_02 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

Um, and as I share it, I'm still so aware that there's so many people that are in a state of chronic illness, or maybe they've experienced um someone not getting healed on the side of heaven. And so, like, I say this story to hopefully encourage and offer hope and that the Lord can do anything, but also like with the um sympathy and the the like open-handedness of I don't understand and I'll never understand the ways of the Lord, but I hope that this can at least um you know encourage people to know like he is still healing and also the surrender of okay, Lord, and you are good and you are all knowing. And um, and so on October 11th, um, it was through the prayer of a stranger and the prayer of Kaden and my husband and anointing and oil. Um, but like literally overnight, I I was free from this illness. I'm off of all the medication that I I heavily relied upon. I had tried to get off of just like willy-nilly a week before because I was tired of it. I was so mad and I failed, you know, symptoms all came back. And so it was like when this happened, Caden's like, you're gonna know really quick if if this is a thing from the Lord. And um, and so I stopped the medication, and and that was the the last time. So it's just like I I feel so grateful to be able to share, and I also feel like a little bit of a weight to make sure that I I tell that story and I share that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Sure, because again, I've heard of people going through that. I've never met anybody until now that's actually had had that had to go through that, but um, but but your story's important for for people to hear, you know, for the people, other people going through uh the weight of all that uh in their lives.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

So yeah, and and chronic illness is so heavy. And I actually I ended up writing a devotional while I was like still in it, and it's called Healing with Him. And so it's 34 days of just everything that the Lord taught me in that season, of holding suffering, but also the truth of his character at the same time. Because I think for me, that's that that was just the hardest thing of like, okay, Lord, you love me so much and you deeply care for me, and I am struggling so hard. And so, like, how do I walk with both those truths in my heart and still like experience your joy and your peace you have intended for me, even in the midst? Yeah, and so like that's that's really um, that's really what the heart behind the devotional is about. And I as I was in the editing process of it is when the Lord healed me.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 20:14

So it was wild because I'm I'm reading through everything that he taught me in the season of illness, and then as he's re-teaching me to trust him in a different way after the healing, he was reteaching me these same lessons in a new lens. And it, you know, it seems silly to think that, like, oh, you have to relearn these things, the Lord healed you, like, and there was so much freedom in that. But the enemy tries to steal our joy, like he knows the the joy of the Lord, and he's gonna wrap us up in fear and insecurity and the what-ifs. And and like he's good at it and he's convincing. And so it's like relearning how to deny the lies of the enemy and walk in the truth of what the Lord has done. And and so I would always have to say, I'm walking in my healing. I'm whatever I was doing, I'm I'm running in my healing, I'm cooking in my healing. Like, I would have to remind my brain.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 21:11

You know, so our brains are so powerful.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Yeah, and that's so true. You you you just you have to just tell yourself every day, uh, when you know that those things are being whispered in your ear and you're like, I know that's not true.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Like, this is not fallen for this one before. I know how this goes, it's not true. That's that's really cool. And I'm gonna make sure that people know how to find out information about that. You have a website.

SPEAKER_04 21:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

Which is really easy to remember as long as you can spell your last name. Right. Oliviaarabal.com.

SPEAKER_04 21:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

I love it. You made it you kept it simple.

SPEAKER_04 21:49

Thank you so much. Yeah, the devotionals on there if anyone thinks it could be of service to them, or even if they're a loved one walking through someone with chronic illness, um, the devotionals actually. It's split into four different main sections. And one of the sections is about relational wounds that we can experience in chronic illness. Um, especially when it's it's kind of like these silent sufferers. People are going through so much, but on the outside they look fine. And so they walk into your room and people don't recognize like to for them to have gotten into that room and to be standing there was a hard road for them. Yeah. But they look normal as they come into that room. And so it's hard just walking alongside, you know, Caden and I both through that season, I had to learn what it was like for him to be walking alongside me. And then he had to learn like how to walk alongside. Like, but we both had to kind of understand what that looked like. Yeah. Um, for both of us, because it was a different experience for the people that are also supporting and caring for uh others who are going through it.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

Yeah. That's big. That's that's a big story. All the while you're still recording music, you're still trying to figure out where that's all going.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Um I want to ask you about the music that you've created. Now you've recorded a lot of music since you came to Nashville. Some of it is I I don't even know how much of your country music people could still track. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of shifted. But I know that um let's just say within the last two years, let's just find a point two, three years. Yeah, that the music you've been making is all more in line with what you feel God pulling you to and calling you to do. Talk to me about the music you you're making now.

SPEAKER_04 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 23:36

Yeah. So, you know, when I moved here, it was country music. And in that, in this time that we've been here, the Lord made it very clear that uh He need me to be bold in speaking about Him, writing and singing about Him. And so I, you know, was playing shows um, you know, downtown, right near Broadway, and doing all of that, uh, that life and co-writing in the country world. And the Lord started to be very clear that I needed to step away from those things. And during that time, though, that I was the you know, sole provider in quotes of, you know, my husband couldn't work because he was in school full time.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Right.

SPEAKER_04 24:21

So I'm like, Lord, that's the only way that we're like able to do anything. But he just so lovingly um called me to pull away from those things, and in that, even co-writing. And so it was it was fun, it was like terrifying. But then it was like these co-writes with God, you know. So he would just like, we just sit and it was so fun. I just felt the presence of the Holy Spirit just so tangibly, just as we sat and wrote. So he like downloaded, it felt like just so many songs in my heart, and that's where these new batch of songs is really coming from. And I'm continuing to write, you know, obviously, but um, that's kind of where it was just this act of obedience, because I I really had no idea what that looked like, and I'm I'm still continuing to learn. It's always a learning process, but now um it's just about what life is like in a relationship with him. You know, he's just so kind and and so loving. And in a lot of the songs, I guess you could look at it as a relationship with somebody. Like some of them aren't quite as obvious, but it's just God he fulfills the the desires of our heart that we don't even know we need if if we take the time to allow him to.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Your influence on your style is very kind of folksy, bluesy. Where does that come from?

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Yeah, so honestly, it it's funny because some people have said that where my family's originally from is like Crescent, Altoona, Pennsylvania, like up in the mountains. There's some sort of dialect in that. And my when my parents moved to Hershey, yeah, everyone was like, You're not from here. And they're like, Okay, thanks. Like it was I so I don't know where that necessarily might come from, but yeah, I grew up and I I listened to like Nora Jones, Jack Johnson, Colby Callet. Was like, I would just play their albums on repeat. That was basically like all I listened to. So I think that there's some of like that jazzy blues sort of stuff that comes from the Nora side, but I love just the acoustic elements and the intricacies of how the the guitars overlap, like in Jack Johnson's sort of stuff, and in that like just beachy, soulful, like you just feel grounded when you listen to this. Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_00 26:38

Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

SPEAKER_04 26:39

Yeah, so I think that's kind of just like now meshed into what the sound has become. Because that's something that I struggled with actually for a long time. Even when I was doing country, that was like more pointed, you know, to country. I was like, it's not me. Like it's still not it. Like there was always something in my heart that's like, I don't know. And so whenever I pulled back from co-writing and doing doing all of that, um, I felt the Lord just kind of like re reprogrammed my heart of like this is the sound that I created you to like give the world. Like, not what everybody thinks that you should sound like, not what you even think that you should sound like. Let me drive the ship and let me make this music, let me do this. And so it was really cool in rediscovering that.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

So there are times when you've got a song and you're like, I really need somebody else to help me with what it is that I don't feel like this song has.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

Yeah, yeah. Like sometimes, like, especially with Thread, Thread is about the story of the woman who was bleeding for 12 years. And I I rewrote it actually a couple different times, and I'm like, there's there's a piece of this that I'm not able to bring, like I need a different perspective, I need a different ear. Like someone, and the cool thing about co-writes too is like everyone's bringing their own experiences into that room, and it's like sometimes it's like I haven't lived what I needed to live, what needed to have been lived to finish this song. Okay, like this needs the perspective of someone who actually had an experience with this lens to bring to the room. So it's kind of cool like how each song gets formed.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

When you put a song like that out, you put out an instrumental version. That's just so cool to me. That's that you go, okay, I'm gonna put that out. Yes, this song is complete with vocals and everything, but I'm also gonna just throw this part of it out there, which I I I love it because I really love hearing what goes into a song beyond the vocals.

SPEAKER_04 28:39

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

It gives people a feel for you know, it's not just somebody strumming a guitar, it's some very beautiful stuff going on in in the midst of that song. So I'm glad you do that. I'm so glad you bring that. I think you've done that with pretty much like over the last two or three years, your songs have all been that way.

SPEAKER_04 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Why do you do that?

SPEAKER_04 28:57

Yeah, I originally honestly it kind of is part of my, I don't know what you want to call this. That happens in my brain, but like when I'm working on certain things, I can't listen to anything with with lyrics. I have to only listen. If I'm gonna listen to anything, it has to just be instrumentals. Like, and so really it I feel like that kind of offers an opportunity for people to be able to experience maybe they know what the song is about with the lyrics, but they're like, you know what, I just need that in my heart, but I can't really listen to the lyrics while I'm doing my work or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

And so I feel like it offers an opportunity for that. And honestly, too, it's like it's so nice to be able to just like throw that in the background of anything that maybe might pertain to it on social media or whatever, and um, just be able to use the instrumental, like um, I I love that stuff. I love hearing the intricacies, like I was talking about earlier, of how all of the different little pieces fit together.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

And sometimes you can't hear that with the no, no, I I that's again that I think that's why I like it too, because you can you can gain a whole new appreciation of a song just just from hearing you know the the things that are behind the voice that you probably don't hear.

unknown 30:05

That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

If I let go of this flower in my hand, even though it's wilted, will my life become dull and bland? And when these petals hit the ground, and the holding is a stem, at least I have something in my head. What if letting go is what I need? What if surrender is what sets me free and what I can't seem to let go has been my bomb in the road.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

What do you feel lately these days in terms of the way you write?

SPEAKER_04 31:02

Yeah, honestly, I I think it's just such a gradual process for me that's kind of like unintentional that just happens like as you continue to learn more and listen to to more things and feel the inspiration and and kind of you learn so much as you just continue crafting. And I think there's um just a gradual change. So I don't know if I could even put my finger on it. Okay, but one of the things that I am learning is just surrender with it. And I think that before it's like you go in, you try to make something happen. You know, a lot of times you'll go into a co-write if you're just like scheduling rights out, no one knows what they're supposed to write about or whatever, which is great sometimes. It's perfect. And a lot of times it just comes from like the first hour of talking where you figure out what you're gonna write. But I think I I started, you know, feeling more pressure with it. And now there's more of just a surrender and like a freedom in it. And I'm like, whatever this is supposed to be, if if this is supposed to come out one day, great. If this is just because the Lord needs to rip out a weed that's in my heart, then let's do that. You know, it's like I can't, I and so now it's like trying to make something happen versus uh just allowing the Lord to do what he needs to do in that. Because music is so therapeutic, and I mean, I can't count the amount of songs that I've written that really were just for me to be able to process. And even the other day, I I said to Caden, I was like, man, I like I'm like having trouble feeling. Like it was weird. I'm like, and that's always my indicator of like you need to sit down and you need to write a song. Because there's like there's digging that needs to happen, there's excavating that needs to happen. That for me, it's that's just my time with the Lord. Like, He needs to dig this up. And then I was like, I you know, the next day I came back. I'm like, hey, I wrote a song. I feel so much better. I can feel like it's like, no wonder, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

There you go.

SPEAKER_04 32:58

Yeah, it's a lot of times an indicator.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Yeah, it's funny. I was talking to somebody the other day. She was telling a story about how she had to take piano lessons. She was taking piano lessons, but she was never really good at piano lessons because she always would sit down at the piano to practice, and all she wanted to do was write songs.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

She'd start playing the piano and she'd be like, I don't want to practice, I just want to write a song.

SPEAKER_03 33:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

And I thought it was very interesting to hear that perspective, that that different side of things. It's like, well, she knew what she wanted to do. She just freed and didn't realize at that point in time when she was much younger. That, you know, well, like I if I want to write good songs, maybe I should practice more. Right.

SPEAKER_04 33:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

It was funny.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Like, let's just get to it. Let's write the song. But you know, that's neat.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

But I don't know what that has to do with the story you just told, other than the fact that you're like, well, you know, you you're not you don't feel anything. You need to write a song, and then you'll you'll find something to feel about. You are really good, I feel you're really good at what you do with your social media. And so anybody that follows you can find out that you you make reference to it quite often, that you and your husband live in a tiny house in a field, yeah, yeah. Which I find very interesting. Why a tiny house? Is this is this another thing that's coming from uh the the camper experience?

SPEAKER_04 34:15

Yeah, actually, that's a hundred percent. That was the idea that actually inspired the tiny house. Um, because like I said, I was still in this season of chronic illness whenever we were moving to Nashville. Um, and we were like looking at like even newer apartments. We're like, there's no way we're gonna be able to afford this. And then also feel like we can control in the best that we could our environment and in making sure that it wasn't gonna become an unsafe living environment for me again. And so I always loved tiny houses. Like that's the rabbit hole I could go down on like YouTube. Like, I'm like, oh, I love it. And like when I was working at the salon, I would literally just go and watch like tiny house videos while people were processing. Yeah. And so um, it was always something I loved, but I never thought I would actually do that. But whenever this happened with the illness, we're like, that seems like the most logical way to kind of get around this in a sense. So we designed it, we teamed up with a builder and they built it up in Pennsylvania. And we were so grateful to have found this farmer who's renting out just part of his land. And so basically it's like a full hookup um campsite, you know, on this side of this field. And and that's where that's where we park it. And we love it. It's it's great because it allows us to have the connection with nature, which I think so much. I I need that for my brain. Then to live in a city. I'm not really like a city gal necessarily, yeah. Um, but we can come in the city if we need to and then go back out and the walls haven't closed in on you yet. No, no, it hasn't, which actually it's been it's it's uh shifted and changed in the uses of the spaces um since we've gotten it. We've we've made some little additions here and there, and now we're expecting our first child. So we have our nursery that we um also just kind of converted from the music studio, which is also the laundry room, and now it's also gonna be converted into the nursery. So that's been a fun adventure. I'll be I'll be posting about that here soon too.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

You're really good at talking about things. That could sound really bad.

SPEAKER_04 36:26

Can you tell? Because we've I've just go on. Now we're at what? 42 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Maybe like 42 minutes. Who's who's counting? But um, no, but what I really mean is I feel as though there's a side of you that is emerging in that you have something to say. Your music is definitely got something to say and speaks to people. Where are you on that? What do you feel in as far as you know, because obviously some changes are coming your way here.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I mean, and that's just that's life. That's part of just a living life, and things change and you raise children and and perspectives change and all of that kind of stuff. But I feel as though, you know, from what I've seen of you, I if anything else, I'm just encouraging you to keep encouraging you to keep that up.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

Thank you. Yeah, which it's so funny because that's something that uh it was probably like maybe two and a half years ago now. Just the Lord gave me this just wild, like it was just extreme clarity of He needs me and He's gonna be using me in speaking, singing, and writing. And so something that's always kind of just stayed on my heart and randomly, of course, randomly to me, not to him, but it's just been opportunities to be able to speak more. And that's something that I have been feeling really passionate about, um, and in making sure I'm obedient to that. But um, yeah, it it's it's so funny how you say too, like the seasons change and and things happen, and we're gonna obviously have this big change with this baby. And that was another huge obedience to like trusting the Lord because He He's been so much again of about the same time. It was like motherhood and music. Like, you're you're going to be doing both. And I'm like, how in the heck? Like, like to me, like, I mean, I I mean, I think to anybody when you look at the two things, it's like, how do those coincide? Oh my. And I will tell you, I have no idea yet, but it's like this constant trust in the Lord. And I know people are doing it. People have have gone before it, and I'm encouraged when I see people sharing about their life with family. But it's cool because the other day, I um I was talking with my mom, and I said, you know, when when we first found out we were pregnant, and we were we were trying, it's not something we were we were surprised about. We were trying, we feel very blessed to be able to do this. But I said, you know, I I had this moment with the Lord, and I was like, I wanted the like music to look different because right now it's it's just me. I have my friend Shauna, shout out, she's awesome. She she helps me kind of brainstorm stuff, but but really like I'm very independent. And so I've been praying about a team and and everything like that. And and I was like talking with the Lord, and I'm like, Lord, I thought that I would I would have like more of a structure, there'd be more of a team in place, like the the that we would be at this spot with my music before these two things could coincide. And it was like 3 a.m. And he's like, you don't get to pick the order that these happen in. And I was like super convicted by it. And so when I was talking to my mom the other day, I realized, you know, when we moved down here, I I knew the Lord. Um, but my husband and I's faith like completely just it it blossomed in this beautiful way after we were kind of like segregated from our family in a sense, just from distance, separated. And yeah, so it it really drew us to the Lord. And so um, it's like when we when we first moved here, we found God. And obviously music stuff happened, but now this family is happening in the order that I didn't, you know, see coming. And and then music, and I looked at that as I was talking to my mom. I was like, it's kind of like the order that I need to have these things placed in my heart, you know, God first, then family, and then what he's calling me to do. It's like so often in my heart, I know I've put the doing before even the loving my family. And I and I remember this saying that I heard, and it's like, how do you change the world? You go home and you love your family. Like if we forget that part, what are we doing? Yeah, like we can go out and we can love other people well, that's great. But if we're not encouraging the people that are closest to us that we can speak life and truth into every single day, what is that for? You know, if we're not doing that in in these close relationships we have. And so it just aligns something in my heart of like, okay, I don't know how this is all gonna coincide, but I trust you with it. And I know that you're aligning my heart with the things that the order that they should be in. Yeah, and and I know it the Lord does it differently for every single person, but it's a lesson that I recognized I needed.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

Trying to hear God at the times when you know you're like, but it's not what I want to do.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

And then and then he's going, Yeah, but watch what I can do with what I'm telling you. And and the interesting thing about that sometimes is you just get this tiny little glimpse.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

You know, you just show there's enough there going, Yeah, I I I see that. And he's like, Yeah, well watch what happens next. Yeah. You know, because that you won't expect that either. But you're gonna be happy with it. So yeah, those are those are things that I'm I even you know, I'm I'm learning every single day too. So Well, I would like to ask you what you're gonna sing.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

Yeah, I was thinking we could do thread. We can sing thread.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

Um, I know that is my favorite song.

SPEAKER_04 41:45

Yeah, I know we talked about it once before. I was like, I feel like we should do that one. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so this is thread. And um, I wrote this in the season of chronic illness whenever I was actually watching The Chosen, the show, and it was the episode where the woman who was bleeding for 12 years touched the hem of his garment. And I remember in that um just being like, like, I really want to believe that you can do that, but I also want to trust and be content, like with whatever it is that you do have for me. And so I I was wrestling with that as I was watching this episode, and that's kind of where the song stemmed from, so it's called Thread.

SPEAKER_03 42:40

He could cure the sick and heal the ply. Everyone surrounded, longing for a sigh. Then in the eye of the stone he sighed for a woman eel and owl as she cried out hanging on the little feeling. Tears rolling down my face. Just one touch your whole life change. Could I have that kind of faith to push through the wind? Or cause I know something's bound to break. Give me the courage to say I'm hanging on back. But I'm not happy your highness long as that is attached to your head. I can't see through these waves crashing over me. I just need to believe and keep hanging on by the thread that's attached to your hell in my weakness per life. It's like a good mamma. I know you're hanging by thread, but you're gonna be alright as long as that thread is attached to my head. I'll make a way through the wind and the wings. You can just follow my lead and keep hanging on by the thread that's attached to my hair.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Talk about our music. Her website is oliviafarabau.com. And on our website, you can access her devotional that we talked about, and her music is on the website too. Once again, make sure to check out the updated list of ten artists I think you should be listening to. And I'll be back in a few weeks with yet another conversation. Looking forward to that one too. I'd appreciate it if you'd subscribe to the podcast and tell someone about it. And until next time, take care, and thanks again for listening. The rest of the podcast.