Impostor – inspiration

The lyrics for “Impostor” are here.

I have a rule: when I write a song about an actual person, I only tell people who the song is about if it’s a nice song that casts that person in a positive light. So I won’t be telling you who this song is about. In fact, it’s such an angry and negative song that for a while I contemplated whether or not I should even include it on my album. My mission as an artist is to uplift and inspire people to better themselves and to contribute to the betterment of the world, and I didn’t feel that this song fulfilled that purpose. In the end, I decided to put this song on the album, because it’s a milestone on a personal journey of mine to overcome hurt and to practice forgiveness. It’s not a happy song, but I hope that one day the story that it’s a part of will be a happy one. I also thought that it’s important to show that just because you’re trying to be a good person and do good things, it doesn’t mean that the journey is smooth sailing and there won’t be obstacles in your path. You still go through hurt and anger like everyone does.

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There was a person in my life who I loved and respected very much. In fact, I even looked up to this person as a role model. And then this person did some things that really shattered my perception of what kind of a person they were. The things that they did hurt me personally, and made my life very difficult for a time, as well as hurting and affecting other people in my life. Around the time that this was happening, I wrote the song “Disappointed“, which conveys the pain and sadness that I was feeling.

I tried to tell the person to stop, and offer them help and support, but they would not listen to me and refused my help. It deeply hurt me that this person would not acknowledge the pain that I was in, and wouldn’t trust me to help them. And at the same time, this person wanted to just hang out and be friends, as if nothing had happened. So that’s where the lyrics of the second verse in particular come from.

The song doesn’t necessarily depict the facts as they actually are, it depicts my feelings. I don’t really believe that this person ever intended to be an impostor, or pretend to be something that they weren’t. But because I had these great expectations and put this person up on a pedestal, and then they acted contrary to how I thought they would, it appeared to me that they were an impostor.