Amy Speace is a songwriter. A graduate of Amherst College and a former touring member of the National Shakespeare Company she now lives in East Nashville, Tennessee. In The New York Times article, ‘A Singer-Songwriter, Just Trying to Make Do’, she describes the economic impact of gentrification on the lives of artists and the inspiration for her new song, ‘Spent’.

“…many of us working-class musicians, painters, artists and writers live a precarious financial existence of our own choosing. When I got together with Neilson Hubbard, a writer and producer, to write a song about a financial turning point, it was easy for us to look around at ourselves and find our subject matter.”

Spent

Come take my hand let’s walk to the end of this rainbow

Do you think that we’ll ever know

Where to find all that gold

Once I heard someone singing a dream we could have and hold

Something of our own

A place to call home

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Years keep rolling the houses keep falling like dominoes

They’re throwing up condos

The for the old

It’s not enough to hear your own song on the radio

When your credit is far below

What they need for a loan

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Can we stay or do we have to go

Could this be the end of the road

How we gonna save any money…

We’re head over heels

In over our heads

We borrow and steal to pay the rent

How we gonna save any money when it’s already spent

Amy Speace/Nielson Hubbard 2015