Courage Is Not for Rent

Okay. I made it. But barely.

It took a nudge from Liz and another from my conscience to sit back down at the keyboard. As I write this, each finger feels like it’s carrying the weight of the world. Not metaphorically. Physically. The ideas are there, but my body is slower than it used to be. Heavier. Showing up feels less like inspiration and more like recognition. I’m here because I know who I am. This is what I do.

This Valentine’s Day, I’m releasing an album—and doing almost nothing to promote it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love these songs. I’m more proud of this record than anything I’ve ever made. But the timing isn’t ideal; it’s accurate. I got married on Halloween. My dad died a week later. I’m releasing what feels like my life’s work on Valentine’s Day, fully aware that the news cycle will probably hand us another gut punch sometime around dawn. Promotion feels strange in a moment like this. Celebration feels… negotiated.

Frankly, promotion itself is mind-numbing to think about. I would rather be hiding on the ranch making things—writing songs, building stuff, keeping my old Ranchero rolling—than packaging my heart into links and metrics. I’ll mention the album to the people who already read my ramblings. I’ll say something on social media and then I’ll get back to work. I’m not running ads. I’m not chasing playlists. I’m not pretending the algorithm is where meaning lives.

Instead, I’m prepping the commune.

Out here, people are quietly making plans with their nearest and dearest—fires lit, stories ready, songs being passed hand to hand. So many of my peers are less interested in visibility than they are in durability. People are looking toward the future here because the present there feels rough, brittle, loud. This isn’t escapism. It’s triage. It’s remembering what has always kept us human when the systems around us feel hostile or absurd.

We talk a lot about bravery right now, and I’m suspicious of most of it. I’ve learned that courage doesn’t arrive on demand, and it certainly doesn’t show up because there’s an audience waiting. Courage is not for rent. It doesn’t belong to marketing campaigns, resilience porn, or inspirational captions. Real courage lives in repetition—in returning to the work when it no longer flatters you, when it no longer soothes you, when it simply asks you to be honest.

I was quiet for a while. It’s not that I had nothing to say—it’s that my nervous system couldn’t yet tell the difference between urgency and safety. Grief changes gravity. My dad’s death scrambled time, attention, and rhythm. I’m surprised I functioned at all. What has begun to steady me is work and service—school, teaching, volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. Being useful grounded me when language felt expensive.

And here’s the thing: this unease isn’t personal. It’s ambient. Everyone I know feels deregulated right now. The world is loud, violent, and unpredictable. Our bodies are processing more information than they were ever designed to hold. Calm feels suspicious. Politeness feels thin. Even art can feel dishonest if it pretends that we’re more settled than we are.

I’m back in my singer-songwriter soul these days—a lineage always willing to name the ailments of the world plainly. Protest songs resurface in moments like this because their accuracy is grounding. Naming what’s wrong steadies the hand. It reminds us that freedom is a constant struggle. I’ve written more political songs in the last month than I probably wrote in all the years before combined.

Writing hasn’t fixed anything. But not writing feels worse. Singing hasn’t fixed anything either—but not singing feels worse. So here I am. Reporting for duty. I have some art to kick us off with, and I’ll get busy on the protest songs. We’ve got at least three more years of this shit to endure, so showing up feels less like a choice and more like a survival skill.

The album I’m releasing—Prophecies and Promises—belongs to a previous nervous system. I’m releasing it anyway. Maybe it’s an act of faith that one day I’ll look back and thank myself for trying to make beautiful things even when it made no sense.

Finishing isn’t always alignment; sometimes it’s integrity. This is who I say I am—and who I want to be.

A warrior poet.

“These motherfuckers are gonna make me buy a gun….” just started rolling through my head. Funny.

So, we’ve arrived.

Your listening homework:
1. “The Devil Said Jump”—Make Me Buy a Gun
2. “Lambrini Girls”—Cuntology 101
3. “Jesse Welles”—Saddest Factory

Francesca Valle is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, producer, and entrepreneur. Originally from Los Angeles, she spent 12 years in San Diego and still stays closely connected to its arts community. She’s the founder of BugByte Studios and WiseJack Marketing, now based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Costa Rica, with creative roots planted in the people and stories that have shaped her.