My Cover of Dean Lewis’s Half A Man

Okay, I am a bit late with this post… But better late than never, right? So on the 21st of October, I released Half A Man, my first song on Spotify since 2015… Yes, shocking and I am ashamed of that… I can make a lot of excuses here, like the pandemic, other projects, and life… But the truth is, for a long time, I put myself lower on my personal priority list. Yes, life got in the way. Yes, other projects took my focus away from my own music. But I also have gone through something of a personal transformation. That transformation has brought me to a place where I finally understand that I need to put myself first. For me to be the best version of myself, to help others and claim my rightful place in the universe, where I serve my purpose, I need to love myself enough to put myself first.

It took me a long time to take that honest look at myself, and start building a relationship with myself. Then finally in April 2022, it all started to make sense. Don’t get me wrong, I am not there yet, and I think the nature of our existence on this planet during these times and in this body of mine, is that I will never get there. Until my last breath, I will keep growing, evolving, learning and experiencing new things.

However, I got to a place where I had a really good look inside and allowed myself to love myself. As a result, these songs started to spill out of me. They are almost like chronological documentation of the journey. And it is not about me, it is about all of us individually and collectively. I feel these are some of the best songs I have ever written.

Then the universe stepped in and I made a new friend, Vincent, who also happened to be a producer/ sound engineer. Back in May, I spent a day in his studio, recording a few songs, just to see if we talked the same musical language. And boy was I happy with the results. So I asked Vincent if he would be interested in producing my next solo album, and to my delight, he said yes. We booked flights and flew to Paris, and in Vincent’s MIG studio between October and November, we recorded, tweaked, moulded and morphed my songs into a sonic story, which I am so excited to share with you.

While listening to the final mixes, with chills running through my skin and warmth glaring from my heart, I started to think about how I wanted to share this story with you. Us artists are the worst at promoting our own art. It’s like no matter how proud of it we are, we still feel shy about asking people to listen to it. We resort to lazy and generic tools, shouting “check out my new dope song” on social media, without actually giving you any reason to do so. I wanted to find better ways of doing it and for the past few months, I have dived deep into studying ways to promote music that actually works for the listener. Build it and they will come method simply has not worked for me in the past. I think my back catalogue of over 70 songs on Spotify is a great proof of that. I started to see patterns, the same pieces of advice from several reliable sources. The old J.P. would have made excuses, but this time I wasn’t going to do that.

It is going to take me a little bit more time to get the album completed and all my “ducks in a row”. In the meantime, I wanted to give you guys something fresh. An idea of a short EP with some cover songs came to my mind, and I managed to find the time to record a few songs in my humble home studio in my small apartment in the heart of Temple Bar. And on the 21st of October, I released the first one of those recordings. The song is Half A Man by Dean Lewis, a great singer-songwriter from Australia. It is a perfect reflection of where I was before my transformation, and I think a lot of people can relate to it. Also, my good friend Guilherme Possa offered to film a video for the song and it turned out great! You can see the video at the top of this page. And below, I will include two Spotify playlists. The first one is kind of a quick introduction to my music on Spotify. It is less than an hour, so great for a commute, for example. And the second one is the deep dive, with all of my solo songs released on Spotify. This one is for a long-haul flight or a very long drive. Anyway, thank you for sticking around to the end of this post, and I really look forward to sharing this journey with you, if you are up for it. Are you?

With Love J.P.