Story Behind the Song: Tenille Townes, ‘Somebody’s Daughter’

When she released her first acoustic EP, Living Room Worktapes, Canadian singer-songwriter Tenille Townes chose to spotlight her voice and deft storytelling power. Her song "Somebody's Daughter" is a prime example: The track imagines what life might be like for a stranger asking for money on the street.

To learn more about the story behind the song, and how Townes' fans have reacted to it, read on.

It means the world, hearing that people are connecting to this song and thinking about people that they've run into or passed by in their car, [or] someone that they know or are related to, a cousin or brother. We've all got a story. Everybody's got struggles that they're going through.

This song was inspired by a drive I took with my mom when we were going furniture shopping, and we saw this girl holding onto a cardboard sign, and it kind of made us think about what her story might have been, and how everyone's got one. So it really means the world when people reach out and have the courage to tell me their story and respond in that way.

My goal is to be able to write music and play for people, and music always makes us feel less alone in what we're going through. I think songs are such a powerful way of getting to tell someone's story. To me, as a writer, it's an honor to get to shed light on things that might be harder to talk about, and music kinda makes those walls come down. We realize we're more alike than we knew we are. So it's always a goal for me to make people feel welcomed, to show up and come as they are.