Gravel & Gold

A song about being rough around the edges, carrying your scars proudly, and finding your own shine without polishing away where you came from.

I wrote Gravel & Gold at a time when I was trying to stop apologising for where I came from.

When you’re young, it’s easy to think everyone else has a more interesting story. You look at people who seem polished and confident, and you wonder if you need to smooth off your own rough edges to fit in. I definitely felt that. Leaving a small town and stepping into a much bigger world can make you question everything about yourself.

The title is really about that contrast. Gravel is the rough stuff. It’s the roads I grew up on, the scrapes, the mistakes and all the things that aren’t glamorous. Gold is what those experiences become if you don’t hide them. One doesn’t exist without the other.

There are a lot of little pieces of my grandparents in this song too. They taught me that character isn’t built by easy days. You earn it by getting back up when life knocks you down. Looking back, I realise they were giving me lessons that had nothing to do with music and everything to do with life.

One of my favourite lines is, “Ain’t polished clean, but I still glow.” I think that’s the message I needed to hear when I wrote it. You don’t have to be perfect to be worth listening to. You don’t have to erase the difficult parts of your story to move forward.

If Dust Don’t Lie is about accepting your past, then Gravel & Gold is about being proud of it. It’s a reminder that the things that leave a few scars are often the things that make us who we are.