As a long time fan of The Hush Sound, when I heard Greta Morgan (Salpeter) was releasing a memoir, it immediately was bought and pre-paid for in my Amazon account. What I didn’t expect was the inspiration behind the book, how much more there was to Greta than just her music projects, and how much you can find when you’re in times of intense loss.
While The Hush Sound was what I was most aware of Greta’s music, her memoir moves through the founding and eventual indefinite hiatus of the band, the inception of Gold Motel (her next project), her friendship with Jenny Lewis and the creation of her first real creative solo project – Springtime Carnivore – and so much more. More than that, she tells the story of longing for first love, finding it, then the eventual loss of that love due to a wandering heart. Her relationships with former bandmates, new friends, and her family weave through the account of what brought her to where she is today.
I walked away from this read knowing so much more about a human I once met in 2008, who is only mere months older than myself, and someone who achieved such massive success at such an early age – to then nearly losing it all due to situations out of their control. Early in the pandemic, Greta began experiencing issues with her voice that led to an eventual diagnosis of spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disease that causes miscommunication between the brain and the vocal cords. For Greta, long living her life as a singer, this was a major loss and set off a time of self discovery, and learning “you’ll get your voice back when you figure out what to say.”
Through a chance meeting with a somatic therapist that turned into a five day retreat to find herself, to losing her first major relationship, and finding her “voice” as an artist not directed by men in her orbit – Greta truly bears her soul in these pages in a way that was heartbreaking, emotional, but uplifting all in all. This book is for anyone that’s been a fan of Greta’s in any of her projects, mid-to-late 30’s women generally, and anyone trying to find their version of their “voice.”