October 6th, 2026
Sara Beth Go is a Nashville-based songwriter and mental health therapist writing feel-your-feelings folk-pop with wit, warmth, and unnerving emotional insight. With the panoramic perspective that comes from making it to your forties alive (no small feat), her songs carry the healing magic of a “therapeutic songwriter’s pen,” weaving together catchy hooks with unflinching honesty. This approach is heard in “Hurt People,” recorded and released by Tim McGraw in 2023.
NewSong Music: What sort of music was playing in your house when you were growing up?
Sara Beth: My mom and dad didn’t play a lot of music throughout my childhood.* They say it’s because we four kids were noisy enough (rude). With that in mind, here’s what I remember:
1. A Michael Jackson tape, Off the Wall
2. My parents had jumped on the Jesus train right before I was born so they found and played Christian music, specifically a trippy looking dude named “Psalty the Singing Songbook.” He was a big Blue Hymnal that sang catchy Bible songs, and he was often accompanied by a mouse named Charity Churchmouse — I remember she had a squeaky voice but it was so pretty. I looked him up recently — he is in this huge blue book costume with tons of blue makeup on — face and arms painted blue and absolutely terrifying.
3. Any Disney movie — I specifically remember forcing my sister to sing Fievel’s part from Fievel Goes West while we “performed” the song “Somewhere Out There.” We jammed hard to that.
*Side note: I’ve since learned that my father went to Woodstock to see Janis Joplin, and my mother saw The Beatles play live at City Park in New Orleans. Dad remembers leaving early because he couldn’t get a cop to help him when someone hit his car, and mom just remembers a lot of screaming.
What was your journey to music?
Definitely no musicians in my family. If he does sing, Dad will shift octaves without even knowing it, it’s wild.
I didn’t care about school AT ALL — I didn’t pay attention and my grades reflected it. HOWEVER, I was great in my music classes. I went to an all-girls school in New Orleans and they really valued the arts, so my skills were fostered and celebrated there.*
Mom signed me up for piano lessons with Joni Jensen when I was 9. She was kind of mean but probably because I didn’t practice. I took the Suzuki method which focuses on ear training, so I got really good at hearing something and playing it. This is when I started writing things on the piano.
I was initially going to be a famous actress so I starred in all the school plays. I really wanted a double pierce when I was 13. My parents told me I couldn’t double pierce my ear until I was 16, so I did it myself with a rusty safety pin. My mom caught me when she saw my bright red, infected, and throbbing ear — the punishment was that I couldn’t be in any plays for a year. So I detoured and moved towards becoming a famous singing sensation instead.
In high school I went to NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts) to study classical voice music. I had this really terrifying teacher named Ms. Alfaro that I eventually grew to adore. She changed everything for me vocally. She would take her shoes off and throw them at us if we were talking, screaming “QUIET” to the class. She was this huge lady perched on top of a tall chair and kind of looked like big bird. Ms. Alfaro demanded excellence and I really built confidence and learned to sing there. When I made my first CD, I gave it to her but she didn’t open it because she was mad I didn’t pursue classical voice.
*I will say in the 8th grade, I didn’t get the part of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I was the Tin Man, and I STILL resent my music teacher for that. I killed my Dorothy audition but Charlotte got the part.
What is the first song you wrote that you were proud of, and why?
“Squiggly Eggs” — it was more of a jingle, I was probably 7 or 8 years old. We were on a camping trip and fixing eggs and I decided we needed a theme song for the moment. It is pretty catchy. I’m proud of it because children teach us better than anyone how to capture an idea and simply execute it in the moment without all the demons and critics and noise in our heads that keep us from just CREATING.
What is your writing process like?
I am generally very literal in my songwriting so if I see something out in the world that hits me, I’ll put the idea in a note on my notes app called “Ideas” (the ideas are more original than the title of the note, ha!). I write on my guitar and it’s generally lyrics and music at the same time. I have a decent felt-sense that helps me know if something is working or not. As far as location, it’s not just one space. Another tool I use in songwriting is Logic. It is my digital audio workstation (DAW) that I use to produce my songs when I’m ready to record them. There are times I’ll start with the music library because it has funky sounds that inspire me differently.
Share a musical adventure from this summer with us.
My husband and I both separately made it into the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s Troubadour Songwriting Contest, which was amazing on its own (he won 4th, I won 5th, I’m totally ok that he beat me). On our way to the fest, we stopped in Manitou Springs and played a show in our friend’s garage. He curated the space with old TVs and VCRs, polaroids, old setlists, and hidden tchotchkes everywhere. Absolutely magical. We had three openers and they were all comedians. It was probably the most fun I’d had on stage in years. You could just feel the open-heartedness of the audience — they were hungry for art and joy and entertainment. And we were hungry to play. We were laughing and crying but mostly laughing and connecting. There are all these mineral springs around the place that are healing to the soul so I blame those, even though one of them apparently tastes like blood.
