For most of my adult life, I’ve had this quiet, nagging sense that I showed up at the wrong time, in the wrong place. Like the world had already settled into a shape and I was the one piece that wouldn’t slot in. The Beach Boys put it perfectly years ago — I just wasn’t made for these times. That line has followed me around like a shadow.
Black Sheep is the song I finally wrote about it.
The lyrics talk about “reach-me-down genes passed down the family / like second hand rag dolls and Playmobil.” That’s not just imagery for me. It’s the feeling of inheriting a life that doesn’t quite fit — hand-me-down everything, including a sense of not belonging that I couldn’t shake no matter how hard I tried. So at some point I stopped trying to fit, and started writing instead.
There was a band, once. I couldn’t hold it together. There was school, too — I never finished it the first time around. I was the dropout, the pain in the neck the teachers warned about, the one whose name got said in a slightly lower voice. For a long time those felt like failures stacked on top of each other. “Thirty-two years of bad luck and shame,” more or less.
The strange turning point came when I had nothing to show for myself. I left for Manchester with no credentials, no plan worth the name — and for the first time, I felt like I belonged somewhere. It wasn’t a clean fairy tale after that. There were still ups and downs, plenty of them. But eventually I finished school, earned the diploma, found work, found a place to settle. And in 2022 I started making music again.
That’s really the heart of why this song exists. Black Sheep isn’t a sad song, even though it’s built out of things that used to make me feel small. It’s a song that takes society’s rejection and turns it into a rallying cry. The black sheep in this story doesn’t apologise — he announces himself. Chest out, guitars ragged, a four-count war drum kicking the whole thing into gear. The chorus doesn’t ask anyone for acceptance. It dares you to look away.
I wanted it to sound exactly like that feeling: punk-edged, defiant, a little reckless. Not polished into something palatable. Because the point isn’t “please let me in.” The point is “I’m here, I made it this far, deal with it.”
If you’ve ever felt like the odd one out — in your family, your town, your own skin — this one’s for you. Maybe you’re a black sheep too. Maybe that’s not the curse it gets made out to be. Maybe it just means you were never going to follow the herd in the first place.
I might be the black sheep of the family. But I’m still alive and kicking. And now I’ve got a song to prove it.
Black Sheep is out June 1, 2026
