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Artiest/Band: Gracie Jet
Guitar, Bass, Drums, Backing vocals : Josh Ritchie
Keys : Rob Ritchie
Violin + Viola : Sandra Young
Vocal : Gracie Jet
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** Folk Rocker Gracie Jet Turns Her Darkest Chapter Into Light On "Point Of View"
The chords to "Jolene" had vanished.
Gracie Jet had known Dolly Parton's classic since she was a kid. But sitting outside her parents' cottage on the Bruce Peninsula, guitar in hand, her mind went completely blank. That moment sent her inside to a piano, and out came "Point of View," the raw, beautiful and ultimately hopeful new single from the Owen Sound folk rocker.
It's the emotional heart of her debut album, 'Smile,' out now.
First, a little about the woman behind it. Jet sings and plays acoustic and electric guitar, and she wins over crowds with electric energy and serious charm. She’s also a practising nurse who worked the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that experience gave her a humble, clear-eyed view of the world you can hear in every lyric.
Her songs read like pages torn from a journal. "Sister," her first release, has passed 250,000 views on a music video she directed herself. "Sway" and "Forest Fire" picked up international radio play and a feature on the national TV show CMCTV Talent.
"Point of View" digs deeper than any of them.
"'Point of View' was written during one of the darkest moments of my life," she says. "Four years ago, I was recovering from a major concussion that had completely changed my life. The physical symptoms were overwhelming. I couldn't sleep. I had a severe migraine almost constantly."
It got harder before it got better. "I was experiencing large gaps in my memory and struggling to get my words out, and the anxiety that came along with all of it was debilitating. Over the course of several months, instead of feeling like I was getting better, I felt like I was getting worse, and I was."
Everyday life became too much. "Sound became overwhelming. I didn't want to leave the house. Even small interactions with other people could exhaust me for days. Before my concussion, I had been a loud, vibrant person, and suddenly I felt like a shell of the person I used to know. I didn't recognize myself."
So she went somewhere quiet. "I started spending time at my parent's small cobblestone cottage in Barrow Bay because it was quiet. I had brought my guitar with me just in case I felt able to play."
Then came the moment she'll never forget. "One day, I was sitting outside and decided to play Jolene, a song I had known since I was young. But I couldn't remember it. I couldn't remember the chords or the words. I picked up my guitar, and my mind was completely blank. That was the moment it really hit me that I might not get better. I remember thinking that the person I had been before the concussion might never come back."
She walked back inside.
"I went back inside the cottage and sat down at the piano. I'm not an amazing piano player, but for some reason it felt like the right instrument for this song. I started playing around with some chords and began writing. The lyrics came easily because I think, in that moment, I desperately wanted to explain to people what was happening inside my head."
Isolation was the hardest part. "I felt incredibly alone and misunderstood. Even simple interactions had become difficult, and I didn't know how to explain what I was experiencing to the people around me. But somehow, sitting at that piano, I could put it into words."
And what words they are: "If I close the door, I turn out the light, / If I shut off the world, will I be alright?" By the chorus, she has captured the whole experience in one line: "I'm losing my point of view."
The song nearly stayed hidden. About a year later, producer Josh Ritchie asked whether she had anything new. "I told him, 'I do have this song called 'Point of View,' but I'm not sure about it.' By then I had started getting better, and honestly, I wanted to ignore that period of my life. I wanted to block it out."
Revisiting it hurt. "When I wrote 'Point of View,' I was broken. My mental health was at an all-time low, my physical health wasn't improving, and going back into those feelings was painful. In my head, that part of my life was over. I didn't want to revisit it."
Ritchie heard something special. "Josh and I first sat down with the song at Betty Ritchie's cottage just outside Wiarton, Ontario. He heard it and loved it, and we began working on it together."
The team kept things intimate. Ritchie produced and added vocals, guitar and drums, Rob Ritchie played keys and Sandra Young brought violin and viola. "We kept the finished recording simple and pretty because, for me, what matters most in this song are the words," Jet says. "It didn't need to be complicated. I wanted people to hear what I was trying to say."
That cottage kept calling her back. "The song was produced and mastered at Unhinged Sounds in Wiarton, Ontario, but there was another connection to that cottage. I recorded my vocals at Betty Ritchie's cottage — the same place where Josh and I had first sat down and looked at the song together."
She even shot the video there. "Years later, I returned to that same cottage to film the music video. It felt like a full-circle moment. A song I had once been afraid to revisit had brought me back to the place where Josh first convinced me it was worth hearing."
"Point of View" has a sister song, her earlier single "Survive."
"Point of View and my first single, Survive, came from two very different places in the same period of my life. I wrote 'Point of View' from a place of brokenness. At that point, I felt like I had lost who I was. I had gone from being a loud, vibrant person to feeling like nothing. The song shows the impact that physical health can have on mental health and what it feels like when the person you have always known yourself to be suddenly seems to disappear."
"Survive" is the other side of the story. "Survive came from a different place. It was about finding hope. I had reached the point where I knew I needed help and that I couldn't do it on my own. It was about deciding that I wanted to live — not just survive."
Together, they tell the whole journey. "For me, the two songs show different sides of the same experience. Point of View is what it felt like when I was lost inside it. Survive is the moment I began choosing my way forward."
Healing took a village. "My recovery took a long time. I started going to Hands On Sport Therapy in Owen Sound, where I got to know Andy and began receiving regular craniosacral therapy as part of my physiotherapy care. During that period, I finally began to feel like I was healing."
Her people showed up, too. "My family and friends were also a huge part of my recovery. They invested an incredible amount of time in helping me get better and stood beside me when I couldn't do it by myself."
Now she's sharing the song for anyone who needs it. "Today, I'm stronger and healthier, and my memory is back to normal. I can also see now that sharing this part of my story might help someone else who is in that place. Someone who feels broken, who has lost who they used to be, or who cannot imagine that things could ever get better."
Her message is simple. "I want people to know that there is always light. Things can get better. And just because you aren't exactly the same person you were before something happened to you, that doesn't have to be a bad thing."
"For a long time, 'Point of View' represented a part of my life that I wanted to forget. Now it is one of my favourite songs. Somewhere along the way, I found peace in my own words."
She once sat outside a cottage in Barrow Bay, guitar in her lap, unable to find a single chord. Now, Gracie Jet hands the world a whole album full of them.
For more information Eric Alper | www.ThatEricAlper.com | Eric@ThatEricAlper.com
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