MADE IN DENMARK is an intimate testament to the power of music to heal and turn the page.
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- NEW ALBUMOUT NOW
- THOMAS BARSOEDENMARK MADE IN
- Page 3Twenty years after releasing my debut album—and following more than a decade away from writing and recording music for myself—I’m returning with MADE IN DENMARK. The album emerged from one of the most difficult periods of my life. In the aftermath of a painful divorce and trial, I found myself at rock bottom and turned back to the one thing that had saved me many years before: music. What began as therapy soon became an intensely personal collection of songs exploring childhood trauma, mental health, fatherhood, forgiveness, love, identity and the difficult journey toward accepting—and finding—myself again.
- 6TH STEP TO SERENITYThis is the first song on the album — and the song that started it all. I wrote 6th Step To Serenity after receiving the worst news of my life, on the back of what had already been the hardest two years of my life.
- LYRICSJust when I thought that I had reached rock bottom I unlock another level of low
- HOW DO YOU WATER A HEARTThis song exists because my mom called me. She was back home in Copenhagen, and I had sent her some of the songs I’d already finished for the album.
- LYRICSHere I am at the piano Trying to write a happy song
- Page 8FAITH “You’ll find love when you least expect it.”
- LYRICSI saw a life I’d built for decades Fall to pieces one room at a time
- I'VE LIVEDThis song is a big fat line in the sand. It’s who I am and where I am today.
- LYRICSI spent half my life chasing down horizons With a suitcase and a restless heart
- LEARN TO LOVE AGAINIs me thanking my heart for withstanding all the many difficult and painful things I’ve put it thru and somehow still remained open for love. ‘You’ve been broken you’ve been bruised but no matter how much pain I put you thru. You always find a way to learn to love again’
- LYRICSTear my confidence to pieces Mistake my kindness for weakness
- THE IN BETWEENThis was probably the song I had the most fun making on the entire album. I’d just been riding my motorcycle back from work, listening to a bunch of old Prince records and some Bruno Mars/ Silk Sonic, so I was very much in THAT kind of funky/soulful mood…
- LYRICSI wake up with the weight of the world Sitting on my chest
- JEG ELSKER DIGThis song holds a very special place in my heart. I wrote it on a day when I was missing my motherland Denmark so much it actually hurt. I missed my family. My closest friends. The laid-back culture, the values, the humor, the intimacy, the bicycles, hey, even the pouring rainI! I missed my favorite city in the world, Copenhagen, and that unique mix of innovative and historic beauty that I’ve never found anywhere else.
- LYRICSWest coast life, it’s all too clean Nothing here remembers me
- THEN THERE IS YOUNow we’re entering the part of the album where some serious tears were shed and my heartstrings were stretched to their absolute limits. This song was written to, for and about my sons, Noah and Jude.
- LYRICSThere’s the sun there’s the moon, then there is you There’s the lies and my truth, then there is you
- I FORGIVE MYSELFThis is by far the hardest song on the album for me to write about. What I’m sharing here is something that, until now, I’ve only told a handful of people.
- LYRICSIf I’m gonna tell you my story I’m gonna have to unbury a body from a childhood
- DEAR YOUNG METo close the album, I wanted to write a song from 47-year-old me to my younger self. I absolutely loved writing Dear Young Me, and it felt right that it should come immediately after I Forgive Myself.
- LYRICSAnd music Man, we really did it
- Page 24PLAY ON SPOTIFY
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HOW DO YOU WATER A HEART
This song exists because my mom called me.
She was back home in Copenhagen, and I had sent her some of the songs I’d already finished for the album.
She told me she loved them, but as my mother, it was hard for her to hear her son struggling so much — and to hear me writing so openly about the pain and everything I’d been going through.
Then she said something only a mom would say:
“I just hope you write something happy soon.”
I tried to explain to her that I can’t write something I don’t feel.
I told her that trying to write something happy just because I thought I should would make me:
“Feel like an actor reading someone else’s lines.”
We hung up.
And that line stayed in my head so I walked straight over to the piano and started writing How Do You Water A Heart.
About half an hour later, the song was written, and I sent my mom the lyrics on Messenger.
And she was SO confused. 😂
She literally couldn’t understand how the conversation we had JUST had on the phone somehow, “magically,” had turned into a song.
It’s a moment with my beloved mother that I’ll never forget.
And I can categorically say that if she hadn’t called me that night, this song would never have existed.
I’ve always felt that every song you write — good or bad — is a small miracle and the process so fragile.
How Do You Water A Heart is about wanting to be happy again so badly but how do you force yourself to feel something you simply don’t feel?
“Sometimes happiness lands like a bird on my shoulder but before I can say hello it’s already gone…”
Yes, it’s melancholic. But there’s also poetic humor and self-irony in it — and underneath it all, a promise to myself that happiness can and will find its way back.
I think this may be one of my favorite songs — and favorite lyrics — on the entire album.
Not least because, whenever I hear it, I’ll remember the night I got to write a song “with my mom.” ❤️