In her song, “Loser,” Leah Speckhard, sings, Why don’t you call me up, tell me my family’s dead/ tell me my best friend hates me, and always has/ burn my house to the ground, as you watch me cry/ this is what you know best, how to say goodbye. The catchy chorus carries the same dramatic tone, yet applies a more truthful resolution – I never really wanted you/ and all the things you made me do/ make you a loser/ and me a fool. Last Friday night, I sat down with the artist at the Moroccan restaurant, Marrakesh to ask her more about this song.

“The funny part for me, is that I wrote those songs in all seriousness,” explains Leah. “Then I would sing them for my friends and they would laugh hysterically. They said, “You’re so crazy.” I think that when I write, it helps that I am a bit melodramatic. My emotions are magnified when I have a moment where I think, “I don’t like that this [situation] happened, or I really don’t like this interaction.” It tends to be a little over the top, yet I think I started to embrace that instead of tone it down. This is part of my personality sometimes, and this is a fun way to release emotions – a lot like therapy.”

Aside from the obvious exaggerated context, the song is indeed funny, the melody is upbeat, and the rhythm has a nice dance feel. This song would be great on the show Girls; I said to her. Then, I silently recalled the press release of Leah’s upcoming album Sleepwalker. In addition to “Loser,” Leah also wrote a song that will also appear on this record called “Gaslighting,” which builds on a commonly-used feministic term. Additional songs, like “Time Machine” touch on coming-of-age in a global community. Naturally, with so many themes circulating in this artist’s music, and the release of new album coming up; I welcome Leah as the featured artist for January on the Music Historian to connect the dots on all the themes in her songs.

I have heard A&R Representatives from labels say that in dance music, lyrics are typically superficial and simple. “Loser” is an example of a song that is suitable for dancing yet does not fit in a club, and includes lyrics with depth, regardless of their dramatized context. Leah furthers her efforts by taking the message of female empowerment to new grounds.

“I think that some women allow themselves to be manipulated as a result of having a good and trusting nature, and unfortunately that can translate into playing a stereotypical fool. I saw that within myself at least. I thought “Yeah, maybe it was foolish to trust this person, but that person is also a loser for wanting to manipulate me in this way.” The song “Loser” stemmed from a reaction to that, and thinking “something needs to change.”

“Part of my process was to try and understand how I gave people permission to treat me this way, to examine whether it happened more than just once or twice. If it becomes a pattern, then you have a responsibility to stop that and stand up to that. I hope that some of that message comes through my songs,” says the artist.

Leah then talks about another important song on her album, “Gaslighting.” The term, Gaslighting expresses a practice in which men tried to convince women they were crazy. The term is based on an old film of the same name, in which a man arranges to have gaslights flicker noticeably while a woman is in the same room. When the woman comments on it, the man tries to convince her she is imagining the flickering of the lights in the room and is for this reason going crazy. 

“The song “Gaslighting,” is probably the most important and one of my favorite because it comes with a real message: Gaslighting should stop for me and all women,” explains Leah. “It bothered my sense of justice to see those things happen to me and my friends when I was younger. I have many amazing female friends, and I’ve seen many of them manipulated over the years. I too have been to a certain extent. I don’t want this for anyone, even men if they are experiencing this. While my songs come from a victim’s perspective, I want to be a little more empowering and say, “We can do something about this.”

Further in our conversation, I learned that in Leah’s life, she cared about a sense of justice not only in relationships, but also in a broader global sense. Leah is also the daughter of a U.S. diplomat and grew up in the suburbs outside Washington, D.C. until the age of 12 when her father was assigned to Belarus. While Belarus had a president, the leadership in the government was similar to a dictatorship.

“I moved to Belarus, and lived there for a few years in a compound where all of the ambassadors stayed. Everybody lived next to the president. He became very paranoid and believed people were spying on him. He blocked water, electricity and heat to the houses, and told residents they had to move for nonsensical reasons. All of the embassies invested money in those houses, so they told him that they had backup generators, and the residents were okay to stay. Then finally, he just said, “Get out.” This action violated an international treaty regarding diplomats, so my family moved back to the U.S. for a year until it was resolved. Living in Belarus really made me aware that we shouldn’t take rule of law for granted.”

After Belarus, Leah and her family moved to Belgium. Leah spent the remainder of her teenage years in Belgium completing high school. Afterward, she decided to pursue a degree in Vocal Performance at James Madison University in the U.S.

“I first became interested in music as a kid, because my family would always sing songs when they got together. My parents are originally from Wisconsin and my grandparents have a lake house there. All the generations would gather when we went there and sing around a campfire, and I loved those experiences. My Dad also sang to us every night before bed, and plays guitar. Music was always around me.

“My parents put me in piano lessons when I was a kid too. I can’t say I loved it; I always gravitated towards the singing and the writing more. I sang in a choir and the select choir in high school. I realized I wanted to do something more serious when I went to college and did voice as my major. However, at James Madison, the vocal coaching was geared towards opera singing, and I realized that I really wanted to write and sing current music. I learned that for me, music was more about expressing myself and sharing my ideas. So I ended up changing majors and working on my music on the side.”

After that revelation, Leah returned to Belgium and decided to change her major to International Relations. She explains:

“Although I grew up in Northern Virginia right outside of Washington, D.C., I lived in a city. James Madison University, while a great fit for some, wasn’t right for me – it was in a very rural area, and I wasn’t used to that. Apart from deciding not to major in music anymore, I also thought the location did not make sense for me. So, I moved back to Brussels and completed a dual accredited American and European degree.

“After college, I graduated and looked for my first job in Belgium. During this time, my family moved to Greece, and they told me, “Why not look in Greece? We miss you, and we’d love to have you around.” So, I found a job at a shipping company in Greece, and moved there.

“On the side, I worked on my music the whole time. I played around Greece, and some people heard my music and they wanted to introduce me to a record label. That’s how I started.”

Standby for Part 2 of my interview with Leah, in which she talks more about recording her first album in Greece, and coming-of-age on her second EP, Sleepwalker.