Rachel Platten - Better Place (Lyric)
Rachel Platten has proved she is more than all right with one song.
The singer-songwriter seemingly became an overnight success with her breakout hit Fight Song last year. But the 35-year-old has been performing her music independently for more than a dozen years.
The song has been embraced as an empowering anthem across the globe, selling more than 3 million copies and charting in the Billboard Top 10 in the United States and United Kingdom, to Australia and beyond. She has shared the stage with Taylor Swift and is now headlining her own shows. She will open the Stanislaus County Fair on Friday, July 8.
Yet Platten said going through those leaner years playing to small crowds and in smaller clubs gave her time to find out who she was first, and just as importantly what she was willing to fight for.
Every step I had to fight for. I drove around the country in moms car and played to 10, 15, 20 people, watched it grow so slowly. I am incredibly grateful when I am in front of any audience now, she said in a recent phone interview. Im so proud to have done it with a message and song I believe in so much.
She is also pleased that instead of listening to some early advice given to her about making it in the business, she stuck to her convictions and her own style of music. (They) said put out whatever you think is popular, then you can write what you want later, she said. I thought Id better listen to my heart and see for myself, she said. Im grateful that worked, that was a thing I can continue to do now.
Not that it has always been easy. Fight Song took a year and a half to write. She said the process involved writing and rewriting. She said she came up with several different verses and choruses.
It was a really hard process of trying things and then feeling doubts. But by the time it was done, I did feel a sense of relief and pride, she said. Yeah, I had doubts like, Is this it? But I had deep in my heart a feeling it could be big and help people.
The songs powerful message of believing in ones self has turned Platten into a role model for many, particularly young girls and women. She said she feels overwhelmed and grateful for all the people who tell her stories about how her music has touched or helped them.
They include teenage cancer survivor Calysta Bevier, who performed the song on the new season of Americas Got Talent, earning her a surprise duet later with Platten herself on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Theres also 5-year-old Chloe Herrington, an Instagram star with Down Sydrome who is a fan and has been helped by Plattens music.
And last fall, she gave a live concert for Christine Luckenbaugh from Virginia. The 50-year-old suffered from an inoperable brain tumor and Platten arranged a special performance of Fight Song for her with a chorus of her family and friends. Luckenbaugh died in December.
There are so many stories like that where people have used the song to inspire them to keep fighting an illness or to try to overcome odds. It is such an incredible feeling, Platten said. I love what they seem to get from the song, which is the idea that I can do it, too. I can do anything.
Thats a really special thing that maybe we dont have enough of in this world. A lot of stuff on social media is telling everyone they arent good enough. I hope that my message is you are.
Source: http://www.modbee.com/entertainment/article86667407.html
