Welcome to episode 326 of Live Happy Now.

Singer-songwriter Mary Gosey has been changing the world one song at a time for the past 20 years.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week, Mary joins us to talk about her new book,

Saved by a Song, The Art and Healing Power of Songwriting.

This book is a fascinating look at the healing power of music, both for those who create it and those who listen to it.

She also talks with us about her work with songwriting with soldiers and frontline songs,

and how those organizations are using music to help individuals heal from the trauma they've

experienced. Let's hear what she has to say. Well, Mary, welcome to Live Happy Now. Great to be with you

today. Well, it's really exciting to talk to you because, you know, you've been giving us a lot to

think about for many years with your music and And now you've given us a really thoughtful

book. So I wanted to find out why this was the right time for you to write this book.

Oh, I don't know. I've been trying to write it for a long time. And finally, it was born.

It was a really long birth canal.

You know, I think sort of it needed an arc and I needed to find some way to structure it.

And I think it's, you know, beautiful

that I was able to celebrate the Grammy nomination

for my last record that I wrote the veterans and their families.

And that gives it a beautiful ending.

Although I don't specifically talk about that.

I do talk about working with the veterans and the moments of absolute joy that I've shared with them by bringing them and their music to the world.

So I think it ends somewhere around me playing the 90th anniversary of the grand old

opera with Joshua Gertz, who was an army sergeant who got injured in an improvised explosive

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