About That Song: Samuel Wilbur
About That Song #98
In our special series, singer-songwriter Sarah Morris interviews artists about the songs that shaped them.
Hi! I’m Sarah Morris. I’m wildly in love with songs and the people who write them. There have been a few songs in my life that have been total gamechangers—songs that made me want to be a songwriter and songs I’ve written that made me feel like I am a songwriter. About That Song is a space where I can learn more about those pivotal songs in other writers’ lives.
For our 98th edition, I was happy to connect with Samuel Wilbur, Minneapolis-based high school teacher by day, singer-songwriter-producer by night (and presumably weekends? And probably also a little bit in the daytime also?). We talked about influential songs in his creative journey and about his newest album.
Samuel Wilbur. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Sarah: Hi Samuel Wilbur! It’s good to meet you! Fresh off the success of your 2024 album, The Age, you recently channeled your environmental anxieties into a “focused 13-track concept album.” In late 2025, you released Ivory Tower—an indie rock opera where you reflect on “life in modern-day America, where the rise of the billionaire ruling class opens its doors to fascism, while invasive technology and ubiquitous AI accelerate the global climate crisis.” Big feelings, big ideas, big melodies for our BIG times. I’d love to learn more about the songs that brought you to this moment in your musical journey.
Do you remember the song you heard that made you want to be a songwriter? Tell us about that song.
Samuel: Yes! I have two. The first one is “Dear Prudence” by The Beatles. I was absolutely obsessed with the Beatles when I was 16. That was all I would listen to and I read every book I could get my hands on. The whole reason I ever wanted to learn how to play guitar was because I wanted to learn how to play Beatles songs. Dear Prudence was one of the first songs I ever learned, and once I was able to play it, it kind of demystified the songwriting process for me. I didn’t have to be an expert guitar player to play a Beatles song. So then I started to think, if I could play a Beatles song, in theory, I could write a song just as good, lol right?
Sarah: I like this line of thinking, yes!
Samuel: The next song that opened up a new world for me was, “Jesus Etc.” by Wilco. I was lucky enough to see Wilco play that song live in 2003, when I was 17 years old, and it was a life-changing experience for me. The song is just so sonically beautiful, and the line “You were right about the stars, each one is a setting sun,” really knocked me out. I thought that was the deepest thing you could ever say. I liked how conversational it was, and yet how important it sounded.
Those two songs really inspired me to try and write music with something interesting to say.
Sarah: Once you began writing, did you feel like a writer immediately? It took me a few years of writing before I believed it—was there a song that gave you that “a-HA! I AM a songwriter!” moment? Tell us about that song.
Samuel: I for sure had imposter syndrome at first, and I assumed anything I wrote must have been written before. But I just kept trying new chords and writing down words until I finished a full song. I played that song at an open mic at our high school when I was 16 years old, and even though it was very basic and I really could not sing at all, people still clapped when it was over. And I knew I needed to keep pursuing that feeling.
The next leap I made was when I was 19 years old. I was home from college for the summer and I had just gotten my heart broken, and of course I had to write a song about it. The song was called “Love in Your Mind” and it was just this super earnest sad song about getting broken up with for someone else. I recorded a rough recording in my room with just my computer mic, and I definitely captured something raw. I sent the recording to anyone who would listen, and it was the first song I wrote that people connected to and would ask me to play. All of a sudden, I had a song that some people knew all the words to, and that really made me feel like I was a real-life songwriter!
Sarah: It’s a special thing to have someone memorize the words that you wrote, yeah. I’ve had a few moments in shows where I’ll look out and see someone singing along and I’m always struck with a bit of “whoa! Did that just happen?!” I’m so glad that your bravery in sharing that song with “anyone who would listen” was rewarded by such a warm reception.
Years later, here you are, with the release of your 5th album, Ivory Tower! The album opens with “Everything is Falling Apart.” The verses detail anxiety upon anxiety and lead us to a catchy chorus where you declare, “Everything is falling apart, but I’m still in love with you.” What can you tell us about that song? And that video? (Because the video is awesome! I see Bryn Battani of Trick Locket, and Matt Patrick of the Library Studios.)
Samuel: Absolutely, “Everything is Falling Apart” is about this baseline level of dread and uncertainty that kind of permeates everything in our country. We are always just a few days removed from the most recent national tragedy/injustice and the next. Meanwhile the cartonnishly evil people in power are openly cheating the system to enrich their billionaire friends while simultaneously inflicting cruelty on the most marginalized and vulnerable communities around the world. It is such a maddening time, and it can feel overwhelming.
When I started writing this song, I was just looping the verse chord progression and letting words flow out. A lot of times my lyrics just come out as questions. Things that are weighing heavy on my mind, and it acts as kind of a therapeutic release just to ask them out loud. These are questions I certainly don’t have answers to. “Will this world survive to see another century?” What kind of future will our children raise their kids?” and “Should you bring new life into a world hanging on by a thread?” I like to raise these questions that I have in hopes that if other people share these anxieties, it might make them feel less alone.
Sadly, these concerns have only grown since I first wrote them down two years ago. It feels like things in our country and the world at large keep escalating and are getting more chaotic and dreadful. The saving grace of the song is having someone in your life that you love. The world DOES feel like it is falling apart and I can’t imagine facing the weight of this world each day without my amazing and supportive wife, Madeline. I desperately don’t want to become a doomer, and I want to hold onto hope, so the chorus acknowledges that yes, “Everything IS falling apart, BUT I am still in love with you.” And holding on to that love is enough to keep going.
Speaking of Madeline, she is the beautiful star of our new music video directed by the incredible Will Prescott. The video was such a fun shoot! I got Bryn Battani (Trick Locket), Matt Patrick (Fathom Lane), Nate Knutson (The Gated Community) and Nathan Johnston (Fairy Boat, Ghosting Merit, Ditch Pigeon) all got together to shoot a fun little roof top sunset performance! The next morning, I ran, biked, drove, and Kayaked all over our great state. Will Prescott had a great vision for the video, and Cameron Deutschendorf and Jakob Testerman shot everything so beautifully. I’m so proud of how it turned out!
Sarah: It’s really excellent! And the song—it carries some big weight in a way that I think DOES make the listener feel less alone (at least it did me!)—well done!
“Tell me your credit card number / give me your expiration date / give me your credit card number / the 3 digits on the back before it's too late”—the second song on the album opens with a lyrical exploration of all the ways we offer up pieces of ourselves, knowingly and unknowingly, and what the cost might be. It’s set to an infectious pop melody with lead vocals by Dani Michaele. The sparkling production and arrangement perhaps provide a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine of truth go down?
Samuel: “Social Security Number” is one of those rare songs that kind of reveals itself all at once. I wrote and recorded the majority of that song all in one day in April of 2021. My wife and I were talking about some product, and then the next day both of us got inundated with targeted ads on Instagram for this product. It was startling and eerie knowing our devices are listening to us at all times. Something that used to sound like a paranoid delusion is now commonly accepted and even welcomed. The public openly lets Alexa and Siri listen in on their lives all day and they scan their face just to unlock their phone!
That uneasy feeling has grown even more as AI is being forced into our daily life to harvest our data, increase our screen time, and feed us an endless slop of target ads for things we don’t need while the government uses facial recognition to keep databases of people who show up at protests. It is really wild! Pandora’s box has been open, and the surveillance state has won.
Once I finished the song I reached out to Dani Michaele (who is in one of my all-time favorite bands in the world, full catholic—do yourself a favor and check them out!) because I knew her voice would add the sweet and haunting vibe to capture the paranoid tone of the song. Then I recorded some beautiful violins from Nisa Addina and cello from Kely Pinheiro to help the medicine go down as you mentioned, and my brilliant friend Matt Patrick came up with the dreamy, otherworldly instrumental outro, which paints such a nice ambiguous ending to our technocratic nightmare.
Samuel Wilbur. Photo courtesy of the artist.
Sarah: Ivory Tower is your 5th album in 5 years—that's incredible! Notably, you feature vocalists such as Meghan Kreidler, Dani Michaele, and Laura Kiernan as lead vocals on more than half of the 13 tracks. Can you tell us a bit about that process? How do you know when you'd like someone else to sing the melody? How do you choose? (Side note—WHOA what an amazing cast!)
Samuel: Yes! I am so lucky to work with so many incredible artists in our local scene and around the world. I recorded this album across 4 continents with 16 world class musicians, including two Grammy nominated artists, and people who have worked with everyone from Jay-Z to Taylor Swift. On my first couple solo albums, I foolishly tried to do everything myself, and I quickly learned it’s just so much more fun and rewarding to work with other people. I learn so much from each artist I get to collaborate with, and it just elevates the song to a much higher level than I could ever lift it myself.
Sometimes I write songs that end up being beyond my vocal range, and I don’t always realize that until I’ve recorded the whole thing. For these tracks, I recorded the vocal parts myself first and then sent them to Dani, Meghan, and Laura. Each of them brought completely new ideas, harmonies, and textures into their sessions, and it just transformed the songs. There’s something really special about watching an artist you admire take something you wrote and breathe new life into it in a way that feels brand new.
I’m also aware that my voice has its limitations and isn’t necessarily for everyone, so bringing in guest vocalists helps create more variety and keeps the album feeling dynamic and fresh. And, selfishly, it also makes the record more fun for me to listen to when I’m not hearing my own voice the entire time!
Sarah: OOH! I’ve never thought of that as a bonus.
Samuel: I’ve been a huge fan of Meghan and her band Kiss the Tiger for over a decade, and I immediately knew she would be perfect on “Ivory Tower.” Once she agreed to sing on one track, I just kept sending her more songs.
If you’ve ever seen a Kiss the Tiger show, you know Meghan is an absolutely electric performer, and she commands the studio the same way she commands the stage with her lightning-in-a-bottle energy. She’s just such a dynamic singer, she can pour raw emotion into the smallest moments, and then in the next breath completely explode in a way I’ve never seen before. That’s why I knew I needed her on these bigger songs, because she can do things with her voice that most people simply can’t.
Laura Kiernan, from the amazing band Kiernan, is one of my absolute favorite songwriters. I had the pleasure of working with her on two songs on my last album, and knew we needed to do more! Then, I wrote this silly song about bees and the oppressive system of capitalism, and I just knew Laura was the voice I needed on this track. She is so good at stacking interesting harmonies and our voices end up blending so well together. It was really fun to carve out this little duet together and she made the song so much more playful and animated.
Dani is such an artist and approaches each song with so much intention. She really absorbs it all. She was on 5 songs on my last album, and I knew she could take “Social Security Number” to the dark and brooding places that would capture the anxiety and mood of the song.
I also got to work with an amazing UK songwriter named Clare Dove who sings on 6 of the tracks. She really helped shape the harmonies on this album and bring it new life.
Sarah: What does 2026 hold for you, musically? Are there any shows in the near future where we might hear these songs?
Samuel: In 2026 you can see me playing these songs with my wonderful friend and viola virtuoso, Anna Hare, on April 14th at Sociable Cider with the amazing full catholic. We will be collecting funds for mutual aid for the families impacted by ICE at my school. You can also see me play a whole set of songs about global warming on April 22nd at the Phoenix theater in Uptown for Earth Day.
I also have a new song out called “Fight This” about the current federal occupation that is terrorizing our city. All proceeds of this song will go to my amazing student, Jairo, who was detained and deported to Ecuador in January. You can download the song on my Bandcamp page today!
Listen to “Everything is Falling Apart”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sarah Morris. Photo credit: Tom Smouse.
Sarah Morris is a superfan of songs and the people who write them, and a believer that certain songs can change your life. A singer-songwriter / mama / bread maker / coffee drinker who recently released her fifth album of original material, she’s been known to joyfully sing with people in her Big Green Bathroom.
