For Eleri Ward’s “BELIEVE IT AND IT’S TRUE”, belief is something practiced, not just discovered. Its central idea begins with thoughts that become actions, actions become habits, and habits begin to shape the person doing them. Instead of asking whether a positive belief is already true, she starts from the possibility that repeating it can make it part of how a person lives.
That idea gives the song the character of an affirmation without reducing it to empty reassurance. She describes music as a form of programming, then turns that premise toward self-love and an abundance mindset. The important word is “reprogramming.” The old patterns do not disappear because someone has decided to think differently. They get challenged through repetition, until another set of beliefs has a chance to take their place.
Ward’s background in storytelling and her move from acoustic interpretations of Sondheim toward electro-pop gives the song a clear place in her work, but “BELIEVE IT AND IT’S TRUE” is less interested in looking backward than in rehearsing a future self. Belief sits at the beginning of the chain. The song keeps returning to the starting point, as if saying it again might be part of becoming it.
For those who might not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself?
I would introduce myself as someone who seeks truth over comfort. I love going into the depths to find what has the power to transform us all for the better, as dark as it may be down there. I’m much more afraid of stagnancy, complacency, and apathy than I am of the dark. This is how I arrive at the light and this is ultimately what I wish to share with others. Authenticity requires wholeness. You can’t just be yourself on the surface, in the light. You have to go all the way down and learn to love what you find at the bottom. It’s not always easy, clean, or fun. But you get to walk out of the depths as the fullest expression of yourself and that will always be worth it.
If you had to bottle up your sound into just three words, which ones would you choose?
Ethereal. Electric. Organic.
Which artists (not only music-related) or moments have left the biggest mark on your music?
Caroline Polachek, Berthe Morisot, Sufjan Stevens, David Lynch, João Gilberto
When you hit play on your songs, what kind of feeling takes over?
The kind that takes you somewhere you might not always be able to explain with words because it’s so feeling based, in the center of and far beyond the body.
If you could team up with anyone in the world, no limits, who would be that dream collaborator?
Caroline Polachek.
What are you working on now, and what are your plans for the future? Anything exciting you can tell us about?
I’m working on my second album, in which BELIEVE IT AND IT’S TRUE is the first single. I’m working on a musical. I’m working on another musical. I’m working on a book. I’m working on myself (always).
Can you walk us through the story or emotion behind “BELIEVE IT AND IT’S TRUE ”? If you can, tell us about the storytelling of the video and the visual approach to it.
I was washing dishes when I heard the first full line of the song play in my head and had to drop what I was doing and start recording. I never know how songs are going to unravel. It’s simply my job to pull at the thread until it reveals itself and feels satisfied. I write and produce simultaneously, both aspects informing one another as I go section by section and lyric by lyric. This song very clearly came to me as an affirmation song. A song to uplift and instill confidence. Once I got to the first chorus, “believe it and it’s true” just rolled out of my mouth, and claimed itself as the thesis. It all flew out of me so fluidly. As someone who channels, I definitely believe that my songwriting and creativity comes from the same place as when I channel spirit. It is inexplicable, and it is a very specific type of flow state where all I can do is receive and express the information I’m given from beyond myself. Being the vessel for this spiritual information is our duty as artists, and we must express it when it comes through. If we don’t, we block our gifts, our messages, and our energy that could otherwise change the world. BELIEVE IT AND IT’S TRUE is absolutely a byproduct of that duty for me, and I believe that I was channeling my higher self, my soul, when it came to me in order to share that higher wisdom with those who need to hear it.
