When a song connects with us on an almost molecular level, and we’d swear that whoever wrote that song either lived our life or read passages from our most personal journal entries, we discover that we’re not as alone as we might have thought we were. Somebody else knows, or they couldn’t have written that song in that particular way. Those songs tell us that we have something in common with their writers, but often it seems that the songwriters know more about us than we know about them.

In Hold On, the Light Will Come: And Other Lessons My Songs Have Taught Me, Michael McLean gives us insight into the songwriter’s most personal journal entries. We are invited behind the scenes to experience the parts of his life that led to more than twenty albums of songs about hope and healing and holding on.