Jewel Finds the Sunshine in Darkness in New Song ‘Grateful’

Jewel finds sunshine in the darkness in “Grateful.” The track will be included on her upcoming, as-yet-untitled twelfth studio album.

“It’s all the little things that make the world go round/It’s all the little things that are almost powerful,” she sings over a bluesy guitar riff. “There’s no politician no sky too dark/No one can take the love from my heart.”

“Anxiety has been a teacher to me,” the singer wrote on Instagram. “It has caused me to learn there are only two basic states of being: dilated and contracted, and that every thought, feeling and action led to one of those two states. Fear, anxiety, jealousy, anger, greed all led to contraction. Joy, curiosity, observation, love, gratitude all led to dilation.”

“I learned that if I was headed into a panic attack, I could hack my way into a dilated state by focusing very hard on a different feeling,” she added. “I chose gratitude. It’s amazing how profound such a single thing can be if you feel it deeply enough. It’s a practice I still use today. I’m pleased to release this new song inspired by the transformative capability of a simple feeling.”

The singer is offering free mental health tools online through her Never Broken program, aiding those suffering from anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic. She recently raised $550,000 for at-risk and homeless youth at her Live From San Quarantine: A Livestream Concert, which has a longterm goal of getting 5,000 people to pledge $1 a day for a year.

She’s scheduled to perform on the MTV Unplugged livestream series, joining a lineup of artists that include Shaggy, Finneas, Melissa Etheridge and others.