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Melissa's love for making music can be traced back to the year she turned seven; at that age she composed her very first song in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, in her great-aunt's basement. The subsequent years were filled with intermittent songwriting (most of which took place in basements, but some of which were actually finished in more lofty locations, such as 15 passenger vans and gym bleachers), and she began to study the format of songs she enjoyed.
Born and raised in Texas and Oklahoma, her rather substantially sized family taught her to appreciate the important things in life: music, reading, and most significantly, math. After moving to San Diego sans any instrument except a guitar, she took a two year hiatus from doing anything musical except for the occasional hoe down in her living room.
In 2005 she bought her first personal piano at a garage sale and began writing seriously, hoarding her lyrics and never expecting to do anything with them but keep them in a cluttered pile in her closet. When a friend listened to her songs a year later and suggested she play them 'out and about', however, the idea struck her as a good one, and she did. Now, a year and a half later, she has performed in venues all over San Diego, and although she continues to keep her lyrics in increasingly unstable mountains of paper stashed all over her house, she is thrilled when people relate to what she writes.
"It really is fascinating," she reports, sitting on the veranda in a simple cotton dress, her cell phone turned off (it's rumored that she has a phobia of phones, cell or no), and her bare feet display toes painted a shocking red. "When someone tells me they love a song I write, I almost don't believe them. It's not that I don't love my own songs"-she laughs awkwardly but with feeling-"it's just that I keep forgetting that other people do the way I do, the way I feel - sometimes, on Wednesdays. Does that make sense?"
No, it doesn't, but, her music can clarify whatever it is she wants to say. So listen, enjoy, and if you really want to, sing along.