Libby & Jamie MacDonald are just too great together! Check out their chat and learn about Jamie’s hit song “Desperate” and why she’s spent so much time in prison! For real…

*The following is a transcript (using A.I. via Restream) of the interview between Libby & Jamie MacDonald

Hello, Libby. Hey. How are you?

I’m good. How are you?

You’re so cute.

Oh, thank you. Can I be long ways like you? Is this better? Long?

Oh, yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah. You look adorable too. I love your fit, your hair, your bangs, everything.

I look back at pictures of me with long hair, and I’m like, yeah. That there was no sass. It was just looking average. So we’ll keep the sass.

It suits you. It looks good. It looks good.

Thank you.

Well, we wanna welcome singer songwriter, artist behind the song Desperate, Jamie MacDonald to LifeSongs. I’m so excited to get to know you and for our listening family to get to know you more as well. So let’s start with the obviously important facts. You love sardines. You’re from Michigan. Right? Anything else we need to know upfront?

I’m a dog lover.

Oh, alright. Excellent.

Yes.

How many dogs do you have?

I have one, big greyhound black lab, and she’s old and gray, and she’s so sweet. And Aw. We’re we’re pals. We’re inseparable.

Oh, awesome. So there’s only room for one in your heart right now?

Well, we have, I live with a roommate who has a dog too. So there’s a tiny little hairy dog. I forgot what it’s called. Yorkie.

Yorkie. Okay. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. It’s it’s not your dog. So, you know, whatever.

Yeah. Right. Right. Something else running around over here.

Okay. Exactly. So you love dogs. Love music? It’s clearly God’s calling on your life, but it’s been more behind the scenes until recently. Can you tell us a little bit? Share some of that journey with us?

Yeah. So, I mean, for the past five years, I kind of haven’t released any music. So this is all kinda happening very suddenly. It’s been really, really exciting, but I had a kind of a hard five years laying down music, looking after my dad who was in the final stages of dementia and Parkinson’s. Kind of reconnected with him over the pandemic after years of not having my dad in my life. So it was just an interesting, but really beautiful plot twist in my life where I just thought, okay. I never imagined I’d be living with my dad and helping look out for him.

Sometimes he didn’t know who I was. A lot of the time he didn’t know who I was, and it was just some really hard things that we walked through together in the hospital and having falls and, you know, just I didn’t have any friends or family in Georgia, so it was really just my dad and I, and I hadn’t ever cared for anyone with a mental illness, so there was just a lot happening.

Mhmm.

But God did an incredible work in my heart and, during kind of the final few months of his life, I got invited to sing in a prison, and it was kind of the first thing of me stepping back into doing music. And I thought, okay. This feels safe for me because I’m really broken and I know these women are also really broken and so I don’t have to show up with any, you know, amazing like best foot forward, I can just show up and be myself and sing and share my gift and so that changed my life. I showed up and they were, there was a choir of women who all have a life sentence, and they had rehearsed one of my songs. And so, as I was coming down the hallway to meet them, I could hear, you know, a song playing in it live, and it was my song. And so I walked into all these faces singing my song back to me with so much joy, and I just break down crying, and it was the most hope I had felt in years. And so from then it was just like, okay, I know I’m right where I’m supposed to be and, I never wanted to leave after that.

I mean, I started, we did a wonderful performance after rehearsing for about a month, right there in the prison. And then after that, it was like, well, I can’t stop coming now. I’ve been coming weekly. And so I ended up joining staff there, as a volunteer to teach songwriting weekly. And just these girls became my closest friends, and a lot of them are my age and had been in there for almost twenty years already and just completely filled with the joy of the Lord and so much strength.

So they were actually the ones who walked me through losing my dad and, you know, I thought I was showing up to give them something and they were pouring into me and carrying me this whole time. And so, when I saw, you know, the result of Christian music on them in the prison and how much they live and breathe on Christian radio and Christian music. I was like, okay. This is huge and it’s this is so important. And if I could get a song on the radio, I can reach all these prisons at one time.

And I just kinda saw this new purpose in, music, and it felt really just kind of God was breathing on it. And I thought, I don’t have to ask God if this matters. I know this matters. And so I I was like, let’s go sign a record deal and let’s get a song on the radio. And, and now, like, you got it. Let’s do this. And then now it’s not much later. And it doesn’t always happen that way, but I just kinda in my head, that’s how it happens. You sign a record deal, and then you’re on the radio. And I guess it that’s not always how it goes, but this time it was. So God was like, well, this is what she expected. And so I guess I’ll I guess I’ll do that.

Oh, it’s so beautiful. I but you’re so right. You know, the power of music, it’s it’s really it’s so healing, you know, just talking about your dad. And I bet music was able to … my mom’s in the early stages of dementia as well, and there’s something so powerful about music, reconnecting memories, and kinda restoring some relationships and firing those neurons that haven’t, those muscles that haven’t been used in a long time. And Yes. Gosh. I just think that’s so powerful to go from that with your dad to then being in the prison with these women who were having life transformation. The power of music and how God’s using you is just awesome.

Thank you so much. And I’m so sorry to hear about your mom. Oh, lovely. Do you guys do you guys ever have moments where you’re listening to music together and it’s just kinda, like, activates, like, more in her brain? It unlocks something.

It really does. Yeah. It’s incredible. And it it’s amazing to watch because it seems like how can that possibly, how can that possibly be? But it really it really does.

Yeah. Yes. I saw the same with my dad. Sometimes I couldn’t have a normal conversation with him. Most of the time, I couldn’t. And Yeah. I would put on a song, which he hadn’t heard all of his favorite music in years because he just you know, with the mental illness, he forgot about all his music. And I still remembered from when I was a kid, the songs that he liked from the eighties and, like, old Christian songs and, I don’t know, Petra and Michael W. Smith. And so I’d pull up one of his old favorites and suddenly, he’s just you know, Jimmy was back, and he could remember things. And he wanted to talk about his boxing career and then talk about, you know, being married and having us kids.

And it was just like the music unlocked those memories for him. And he knew every word to the songs too, which was cool to see. Because he hadn’t heard them in fifteen, twenty years and with his mental illness, none of that mattered. And he, all the words were still right there, and it was so beautiful. Beautiful.

Oh my gosh. So I guess Christian music, has that been a a part of your life for a long time? Like, do you have any old CCM jams that you rock out to or that you love?

I mean okay. So when Place in This World just made a comeback, that was, like, the best thing ever because I have loved that song my whole life, and my dad used to sing that when we were kids. And and the message has just always meant a lot to me because I’ve always felt that way. Like, where do I belong? Like, is there something I can call my own in this world? It’s just, like, it’s so fun to belt that song with all your heart, and it’s always been a part of my life. So for it to now be back on the radio, I just kinda feel this little wink, like, looking up to heaven and thinking about my dad.

Like, he’s up...