As a teenager, I had a best friend who was obsessed with the old MGM movies and old Hollywood lifestyle. I tried to stay at her house every chance I got just to avoid my own home and we watched countless musicals and old TV shows like Rhoda and Mary Tyler Moore. This friend was the one who introduced me to Dear Mr. Gable. I never saw Broadway Melodies of 1938, the film from which the song originated, but I had a cassette tape that had Dear Mr. Gable and several other songs by Judy Garland and I wore that tape out. I would spend hours in my room as a young teen, trying to copy every vocal intonation of young Judy, who was only fourteen or fifteen at the time she recorded Dear Mr. Gable. I thought Judy Garland was the greatest.

In 2023 I started working with a vocal coach, lyricist, pianist, life coach, and comedienne extraordinaire who showed me a video she made that brought her joy. She shared this quote with me,

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who’ve come alive.”

Howard Thurman

Sometime earlier that year, I had been chosen to sing with Brandi Carlile and her band at a festival in Florida and it changed my life. Prior to that day on the beach, I hadn’t set foot on a stage in over ten years. I had quit performing because my constant companions of doubt and insecurity made me believe I wasn’t good enough and it was stupid to try to be a professional singer. But while I was waiting backstage to sing, Brandi and I made eye contact and I felt a visceral surge of commitment and dedication run through me like I had never felt. I had recently come out as gay and was still struggling to find my way in the world as a new late in life lesbian. In addition, I was at the beginning of my first relationship with a woman, who I am now engaged to marry. After I sang with Brandi and with the constant support and encouragement of my new partner, I started pursuing music as intensely as I do most things that bring me joy.

One day I got a sudden inspiration to make a parody of Judy’s Dear Mr. Gable and rewrite it as a love letter to the woman who rekindled my passion for music. There were so many things to love about this idea, but mostly I loved that it would be an updated version of a woman singing to another woman. Because as a girl in a small republican town in my teen years, loving Judy Garland was not enough of a sign that I was gay. So, let this be the beacon that I never had. Let every girl who watches this, that has that same burning question I did as a girl, “What does it feel like to kiss a girl?” know that there are so many women that love women. And the only ‘right’ thing to do, is honor what’s true for her.

So this video project is truly a love letter to my younger self, to all the younger selves that didn’t know and to all the little girls afraid that they might like girls too. It’s okay. Brandi’s got us.