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Cody Lee Curtis' song "Back Again" allowed him to navigate the transition between a summer fling and a long-term relationship.
"The song was inspired by someone who I was seeing casually last summer. We had a lot of fun and then the summer came to an end and I thought that the summer fling might come to an end. But it didn't."
"I was falling more and more in love with the person, and I didn't know what to do. The only way that I could really express myself was to write the song and as I wrote the song, I became more confident in what I wanted to do," Curtis said.
Curtis said the song's lyrics really make the song, particularly during a global pandemic.
"In this day-in-age, everybody seems to be having an online fling so the song is really about what happens when that fling takes itself to the next level," he said.
The electro-pop song is one of three songs from Curtis' self-produced EP "One", released in January 2020.
"I'm a little bit of a tech geek. For the last five years, I've been teaching myself producing and song-making. I work with Ableton Live, which I really love because of its infinite possibilities," he said. "I recorded it in my bedroom and got it mixed and mastered by somebody else."
This year, the Windsor-born singer-songwriter-producer is also a participant in Canada's largest singer-songwriter competition "Sing for the Shot: Remastered".
The competition is meant to show Canadian independent singer-songwriters what it's like to audition for a record label, according to its website. Its prize is a management deal with C.J. Allen, one of the competition's six judges.
"This is a great learning opportunity to see how how I can build and engage an audience online, " he said.
Past contestants succeeded in reaching 800,000 streams on Spotify and performing at Boots and Hearts, NXNE and Ottawa Bluesfest. Some also opened for Jim Cuddy, Tyler Shaw, Buffy Saint-Marie, Our Lady Peace and made broadcast appearances on season 2 of CTV’s The Launch.
Curtis said he recently did a livestream through The Shot's Facebook Page.
"I built a custom lighting system that was synched up to my music and that was a tone of fun. I definitely plan to do another at-home concert," he said.
Curtis said that after five years of learning music production, he is looking forward to consistently releasing singles in the upcoming year.
"I'm starting to surface and find my ground and see what I need to do next to take my music to the next level and to get more people to hear it," he said.
Stream Back Again below: