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The introduction to Molly Parden’s “Feel Alive Again” cascades like warm rain, washing away guilt and fear. The song is difficult for her to perform, she confesses. “I want everyone in the room to go there with me,” Parden says. “When I can hardly hear my voice over the chattering of the crowd, that’s pretty draining.” Listening to a Molly Parden song is a trip back in time to moments of sharp pain and deep joy. It is emotion delivered simply, authentically, and beautifully. But as much as listeners appreciate her music, the performance of it can be exhausting. Parden is an artist in a world where music is business, and being a performer and writing your truths is a complicated balance to achieve.

Parden was born in Georgia in 1988. She fell into being a musician — that is, the profession chose her. “It was more something that happened to me,” Parden says. She was gifted a guitar at 15 and began making her own music a few years later. “I didn’t know that being an artist was a viable lifestyle,” she says. Unless she could be the next Britney Spears, there was no visible path towards making music her career, something Parden struggles with to this day. To be a musician, “I have to find tours and send emails and keep up to date with my digital distributor… I have to corral musicians to play gigs with me… I have to do everyday things like go to the grocery and keep my tires rotated and balanced, and make money while I’m not on tour,” she says. With over 400,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, a strong repertoire, and an ever-growing audience, one job Molly takes frequently is babysitting. She “really love[s] kids.” She seeks to treat songwriting “purely,” and when she writes, it is still just her and her guitar.

Parden reflects on the music industry with striking honesty. Her songs are about past moments that have hurt and shaped her, yet she sometimes feels like “a cog in the machine,” beholden to the demands of the industry. Her fans, and her connection to them, keep her in the business. “It’s the four or five people a night who will come up to me at the merch table and just say, this song meant so much to me,” she says. “It’s so beautiful how music can bring us together.” And indeed, Parden’s courageous vulnerability and lyrically expressed pain have a profound, unifying effect. Struck by the last chords, one feels cleansed.

“I have found in myself a deep need to belong — and to feel like I belong — to something. To a purpose, to a cause, to a group... I want them to know that they’re getting like the real me.” In a world of ever trendy — and ever canned — pop beats and lyrics, Parden’s heart-felt folk stands out. As Parden embarks on her U.S. tour, one can only hope that she (and her audience) find the connection they are seeking.