Laura Harley

Modern life can leave people feeling battered around the edges. Anxiety, tension, uncertainty, and the general noise of the world can wear down even the most hopeful heart.

Laura Harley makes music for exactly that space.

Her songs are created to “soothe the wounds of modern life” and help cultivate strength and peacefulness within the listener. In recent years, much of her work has included passages from the Bahá’í Writings, bringing spiritual text into a contemporary musical setting with tenderness and care.

Laura began making music early. At age 15, she formed her first band, Badasht. She later co-founded the alternative rock band Sliver, which released two albums and toured nationally. Sliver was also personally significant: Laura married her co-songwriter and co-singer from the band.

After that chapter, Laura released two solo albums and has continued developing as an artist. In the last few years, she has focused on releasing singles that set passages from the Bahá’í Writings to music, a uniquely challenging kind of songwriting. Rather than starting only with a personal story, image, or emotional hook, Laura works with existing words already full of depth, meaning, and beauty. The task becomes one of listening closely, finding the emotional current within the passage, and creating music that serves the words without overwhelming them.

Laura’s artistic life has been shaped by her efforts to live according to the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. Her creative work is also influenced by her experience homeschooling her two children, now 15 and 12, and by her part-time work as a life coach helping people overcome challenges and find more meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

That sense of purpose comes through in the way she talks about music. Laura sees creating and sharing music as something deeply meaningful and healing, both for the artist and the listener. She recognizes that a song does not need to reach thousands of people to matter. Sometimes, helping one or two people may be the most important achievement of all.

That is a perspective I deeply appreciate.

So much of the music world emphasizes talent, popularity, image, polish, and numbers. Those things have their place, but they are not the whole story. At heart, music is human communication. It can comfort, strengthen, awaken, encourage, and remind us that we are not alone.

This week’s song, “What We Have Left”, features two passages from the Bahá’í Writings and serves as a profound reminder that we are only visitors passing through this material realm. Our spiritual development is the only thing we truly take with us when we leave. (Above link is on YouTube. Other links, if you prefer: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Bandcamp)

Website
Featured song: “What We Have Left”
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🎶 Spotlight No. 65
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Disclaimer

All biographical details and quotes in this post come directly from the artist and/or the artist’s public online presence. The thoughts and opinions shared are the artist’s own. I use AI tools to help organize information and smooth out the writing, but every spotlight is personally curated, shaped, and approved by me. Songwriter Safari isn’t responsible for the accuracy of submitted details or the availability of external links.