WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The P Henny Show: Songs From Other’s perspectives

Episode Date: October 22, 2026

P Henny plays his songs Teddy’s song (all the light), Wherever Did You Go, and A Prayer From My Wife and talks about writing songs from other people’s perspectives.

Hello and welcome back to the P. Haney show. We got another wonderful, wonderful episode for you today. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to remind you all that you can follow me on Instagram at P. Henny Music. I've been getting a lot of new followers recently, which means people have been listening to the show because it sure as hell haven't been seeing me on Instagram

because I've been posting nothing because I'm so busy. But, yeah, I've been getting a lot of follows and it means that people care, people like the music. So thank you for everybody who's been listening. very grateful to all of you guys who take the time to listen to me yap but yeah we're back with another episode for you today we have a wonderful topic for you uh i'm actually recording this at night which is a lot cooler usually i record it in the um afternoon but i don't know there's just like a cool vibe to having recording at night it's like oh i'm here in the studio and it's 9.15 p.m it's not even

that late but whatever this song song what i talking about this episode is about writing songs, drum roll please, from other people's perspective. Not your own life. We're not talking about your life. It's not all about you, my friend. Sometimes you've got to write about other people.

Because, you know, most times you're writing about your own life. You go through something, your girlfriend breaks up with you. Your dog dies. You know, something happens. And you got to write a song about it. Sometimes you're just depressed and you got to go to your guitar and you got to say,

man, I ain't feeling it right now. But sometimes you sit down and write a song, especially if you're like me and you're obsessive and write a song every single day, you sometimes sit down and you say, I'm not really feeling too much today. You know, I'm kind of having an okay day. It's not...

Ed Sheeran once said that, you know, his girlfriends sometimes get mad at him for writing breakup songs or, you know, love songs about them. He says, you never sit down and write a song saying, you know, my day was pretty good today. I had a pretty all right day. No, it's either the worst day of your life or it's the best day of your life. And sometimes you sit down and you're like, you know, it's just been an all right day. I think I'm going to write about somebody else's feeling today because sometimes it's not all about you.

You got to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, ladies and gentlemen. This is not an easy task, especially for you. For those of us that are so caught up in our social media lives that all we do is think about ourselves, me included, God knows how much I think about myself. I think about myself more than, I don't know, but I think about myself a lot. Anyway, you got to put yourself in somebody else's shoes, which means that, you know, it's got opportunities for compassion, deeper understanding of the human condition, which is really what we're after when we're writing songs. We really just want to explain the human condition in some sort of clarity. you know what I mean and yeah I'm going to play for you

some examples of times that I wrote songs from other people's perspectives it's actually a lot of fun and I enjoy it because you're not writing from yourself which means you're not always over-correcting everything that you write. Sometimes when you sit down and you write a song and you say you know I'm depressed right now and you write a song about being a depressed and you say

ah but I didn't write it in the right way that's not really how I feel I don't like this this doesn't truly represent the feeling that I am feeling But when you're writing about somebody else, you'll never truly know what they felt. So all you can do is kind of guess. And if it's wrong, then who the crap cares? You're writing about somebody else.

And so I'm going to play you a couple of songs that I wrote, that are not about me. The first song I'm going to play for you is called Teddy's song. And funny enough, it's a song about Teddy Roosevelt. I remember sitting in history class, I think of my senior year of high school and we were learning about, I was in an American history class, and we were learning about Teddy Roosevelt.

Who's a goat, by the way? Oh, my gosh. You ever heard the story about how he got shot at one of his rallies and went up and did the speech anyway? Because the bullet didn't fully pierced through the Bible that he had in his breast pocket? What an absolute man. He was a cowboy.

He was a governor. He was like a boxer. He was just a manly man. Dude, oh, my gosh. What are we even talking about? Anyway, but Teddy Roosevelt lost his mother and his wife on the same day. They both died on the very same day.

And he wasn't even there. He was off on his ranch doing cowboy stuff. And oh my gosh, that is absolutely life-crushing, if you think about it. And I'm sure he didn't have a guitar on him. So, you know, I decided to write a song for him. And what came out was it kind of got a soul element. It's kind of got like some Sam Cook in it.

But it's got the desperation and it's got the heartbreak and it's got the absolute just soul-crushing depression that I'm sure he must have felt. And in his diary, if you look it up, he usually writes these very long, very complicated, very ornate diary entries every day. And in that diary entry, he just wrote, The Light, The Light has gone out of my life. Absolutely crushing. I changed it a little bit. In the song, I say all the light has faded from my life, because I think that sounds better. but it's the same kind of idea.

Anyway, so this is Teddy's song and in parentheses, all the light. That's what this song is called. I got troubles. I got worries. Nobody knows. And I got problems. In my soul.

And I got work. I've been living. The song, All the Light. I like that song a lot My voice is in Not great shape As you can probably tell But when is it ever in good shape

So I apologize If I was a little Sharper flat But We got the job done And I don't really care If you don't like my voice Because you're the one listening to the show

That is called Teddy's song Yeah so I remember sitting in my garage Where I wrote the song And I looked over at my bookshelf And there was a biography of Teddy Roosevelt that I had read a couple years prior, and I didn't know what else to write about,

so I said, you know what? I remember sitting in that history class and seeing the diary entry saying all the light is gone out of my life. And, yeah, I mixed that with some Sam Cooke soul energy, and out came that. I like it. I think it's good. But, you know, you don't have to like it either.

So that's Teddy's song. What am I going to play for you next, ladies and gentlemen? I'll tell you what I'm about to play for you next. This is a song called Wherever You Did You Go. Wherever Did You Go? Sorry. It's a short little song, mostly because it's very fast-paced. It's fast-paced because it kind of represents a beating heart who's kind of panicking. This song, it's not about me.

It's about my friend, I promise, who went through a breakup. And it was his first relationship, so, you know, he can always take it. that kind of hard. But he used to see her on Instagram all the time and it just caused him a lot of pain. I felt bad for my buddy, you know. Part of the problem with social media is that if you break up with somebody, they're always on your screen. It can be a source of a lot of pain. And so I wrote this song for him and about him kind of like panicking because he was so in love with this woman and it ended so quickly that he didn't really know what to do. You couldn't get rid of her wherever he went. You could always see her.

that is why I wrote this song. And so it's a short little song, real fast-paced, and I hope you like it. It's called Wherever Did You Go, and it's not about me. I thought I got rid of your smile and your eyes, but you still show up in my dreams at night. Dreams sometimes I wonder if we were meant to be,

but we were too young, and we had to just wait around some, wait around some. I guess we'll never know. know now because baby you're just a ghost now and the voice in my head is so loud wherever did you go i saw your picture on instagram it's a scam it made everything come back to me back to me i still remember what your head felt like on my shoulder it's colder without you baby i want you baby but i guess we'll never know now because baby we're just a ghost now I'm gonna'is in my head is so loud.

Wherever did you go. I'll get you back, but I don't know how. Baby, you're just a ghost now, and the voice in my head is so loud. Baby, where did you go? It is, ladies and gentlemen, wherever did you go? Wrote that on March 30th of 2026.

Not that you wanted to know that or anything, but felt like saying it. Teddy's song actually wrote very recently, only a couple months ago. Yeah, I wrote it in July over the summer. But yeah, that seemed like it was a long time ago that I wrote that. And this next song, oh my gosh, let me tell you. This song was ancient.

It's so ancient, it's in my other notebook. And my songs that were written from August 2025 to January, 2026 notebook. Oh, man, I need some water right now. But I don't know if I have any. I don't. Dang it. That's okay. We'll suffer through.

We will suffer through. I wish I had a cup of tea right. right now. Dang, my throat hurts. Okay. This song, what is this song about? I'll tell you what this song is about. In 2023, I read an article in the newspaper. I think it was in New York Times about this guy that he was like an adventurer. He was like a scientist, submarine, uh, adventurer guy and he went down on a submarine and a submarine crashed and he died. And there was a couple of other guys on the submarine as well, I think. I don't know why this newspaper article struck me so much, but it was weirdly, it stayed in my mind.

And so I remember very distinctly at my little table where I used to write all my songs back in the day and with the newspaper spread out in front of me. And being really sad because this guy died and he had a wife and children. And I began to think, oh man, what would the wife be doing right now? Her husband just died in this horrible crash. mix that with what I had kind of been listening to at the time, which was like Hamilton? I don't even know. Like musical theater.

And I loki wanted to just write a musical theater song. This is probably the only song that I've ever written that I tried to write it like a musical theater song. But when I listen to this song, I kind of just like picture it being played on a stage almost, like the wife talking to the husband on the stage. You know what I mean? So that's what the song is about. It's about the wife kind of talking. to the husband after he died in this crash,

but there's a deeper meaning to the song, which is kind of about me. And that's that, does ambition cripple your hopes for a wife and children and a family? There's an element to the song that's a fear about my own ambition will kill my dreams of having a wife and family, so you can kind of look at the song

as my wife after I destroy myself with my own ambition, you know, sending up a prayer to heaven trying to reach me. That's part of the song. the song, but the original reason why the song was written is because of this article that I wrote. I'm sorry, that I read in the newspaper. The main part of the article that struck me is that the wife said in the interview said that, oh, you know, he could never say no to a adventure. And that got me. Because she must have known it was coming, you know? He could never say no. Anyway, that's what that song is

about. And this is all called a prayer for my wife. Why fight for something you don't know? Why waste your life chasing those cloudy goals? Your kids are in their room and they're asking when daddy's coming back. And I will tell them that your ambition killed a little common sense you had. You crushed me with what you'd done, but I can't seem to anger myself now. Because I know if you were here, you'd ask what I'm worrying about. I worry about you sometimes. I worry about life

And the things you can't control Yes, I worry about you sometimes Because when you're me You gotta see those places that you go And you never do say no Why say you're fine when you're so clearly not Why can't you stay on earth You're all you've got known

You're remembered by the ones you choose to love Not the ones you leave to die And I know I should be angry But I still see you so clearly in my illusion is a scary thing Sometimes I still see you in And I love you with all my heart But my heart is disagreeing with my About you sometimes

Worry about life And the things you can't control Yes, I worry about you sometimes Because when you're me You gotta see those places that you go And you never do say no Never do say no That is a prayer for my wife.

Again, I apologize for my absolutely butt cheeks voice today. But it's all right, because you're listening. You listen to minute 19 of this, so you can hang on a little bit longer until the end. So what's the point of writing songs about other people instead of yourself? Usually you write songs to process whatever you're going through, but when you put yourself in someone else's shoes, you can actually use your own life experiences to paint the picture that you're painting of somebody else. because you know what pain feels like.

You know what hurt feels like. You know what it's like to lose somebody. You know what it's like to have emotions, feel happy or sad, or jubilant and depressed. So when you're writing a song about someone else, you don't actually have to, in a larger sense, you don't have to be feeling the feeling that you're writing a song about in order to write a song about it.

You don't. In fact, sometimes it's better to do that. Sometimes when I'm feeling something, and I go to write a song about it while I'm still deep in the feeling, the song doesn't come out that good. It's the next day when I'm reflecting about how I felt the day before. That's when the great song comes. And so when you're writing songs about other people,

you have a bank of knowledge about emotions that you can use. The tools that you can use to build this chair are all inside of you. You just have to kind of know how to say them in the right way, and that just comes with practice. and we're all learning. I'm not saying I'm very good at this. In fact, I have been writing a whole lot recently. I don't think I've written a song in a week.

And a week in one day, which is probably the longest I've ever gone without writing a song. I don't know why. I sat down to write. I just can't find anything. And that's kind of a sorry excuse, but hopefully by next time I'll have some songs at my disposal. So maybe one day I'll write a song on the air.

That'll be great, wouldn't it? Anyway, to close off, I'd like to pose a question to you all. Would you rather have an infinite meatball or five really, really good French fries? Think about it. Think about it. Think about it. From me and my glorious beautiful co-host, Mr. Irangangutangang, we wish you well and go

and write beautiful songs that change the world. We will see you next time on the P. Henney Show. God bless. Good night.