A couple of years ago, Jason Robert Brown was asked to write a song for a young girl, Josie, in treatment at the Ronald McDonald House. “Josie's bones grow incorrectly and very weakly,” Brown explains in the “Inside the Album” video above. Brown went to meet Josie and her mom. Over multiple visits, Brown spoke to Josie, got to know her, and took pages and pages of notes—but was unable to find the song in her story.
As he exited Josie’s room after his final visit, Josie’s mother told Brown: “She just wants to make sure she's not invisible.”
That was the inspiration Brown needed to write “Invisible,” a pop-rock anthem on his latest album How We React and How We Recover, released on Ghostlight Records June 29.
Throughout his artistic residency at SubCulture, Brown has accompanied multiple guests on the song, including Todrick Hall. But for the album, Brown had to find a way to find his own story in Josie’s song.“Trying to figure out what the version of the song was that felt like my thing, it was about allowing it to feel very intimate and more like a demo. That felt more honest to me.”
Listen to the full track below and purchase your copy of How We React and How We Recover here.
