In a dim green room backstage on tour in the UK, Michaela Anne pressed record on her phone and captured what would be the first song she’d written in two years — what would become the chorus to her new single, If Your Body Fails You. It was the first spark of music after a long silence, a two-year stretch when songwriting felt impossibly far away.

The silence began when Michaela became a mom, just as her own mother suffered a life-altering stroke. Bearing witness to her mom’s loss—of mobility, of independence, of being treated as fully herself—Michaela found herself desperate to understand unconditional love both for herself and the people around her. “I want to resist the idea that we must be preserved. If we’re lucky to be here long enough, our bodies will fail us and only in our deep devotion to ourselves and each other, will we survive.” If Your Body Fails You carries that tenderness: a recognition that we will change, and love must deepen to hold all of it.

Born into a military family that moved frequently, Michaela Anne first drew national attention with her 2014 debut Ease My Mind, praised by The New York Times for its “plain-spoken songs of romantic regret and small-town longing.” After a move from Brooklyn to Nashville, she followed with 2016’s Bright Lights and the Fame, earning comparisons in Rolling Stone to Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris. Her 2019 Yep Roc debut Desert Dove marked a true breakthrough, praised by outlets from Billboard and USA Today to NPR—who called its lead single “one of those moody, breathtaking, stop-you-in-your-tracks songs”—and landing her on major festival stages from Bonnaroo to XPoNential. She followed that up with her 2022 release, Oh To Be That Free Again equally acclaimed by press. Paper Magazine named the title track one of the best songs of the year, Holler Country called it "immaculately crafted" and Michaela received further invitations with appearances on NPR's Mountain Stage and World Cafe as well as festivals like Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Sisters Folk Festival and Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. She has toured with artists like the Wood Brothers, the Milk Carton Kids, Watchhouse, Courtney Marie Andrews, Bonny Light Horseman, Ron Pope and Ryan Bingham.

If Michaela’s earlier records searched for satisfaction in the external world, her new music brings the gaze inward. It is a re-grounding of values, an honest reckoning with both light and shadow. Michaela has emerged as not just a songwriter but a documentarian of the human experience — tracing the bittersweet lines of growth, loss, and resilience with rare grace.

When she is not on tour, Michaela is a sought after songwriting and music coach, guest lecturer and co-host of the podcast The Other 22 Hours with producer and husband, Aaron Shafer-Haiss.