A Lifetime of Listening. A New Chapter of Creating
There is one thing every song on Soundtrack of Our Lives has in common.
They all begin with the same person.
My name is Veronica Broyles, and for as long as I can remember, music has been part of the way I experience life.
I am not a professional musician. I don’t play an instrument, and I don’t claim to have written these songs in the traditional sense. That’s why I use the term song crafter.
I begin with an idea, memory, emotion or story. I work with words and lyrics, make choices about style, voices and musical direction, and use artificial intelligence as part of that creative process.
But my relationship with music began long before I ever imagined crafting songs of my own.
The Music Was Always There
From dancing to “The Twist” to watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, music was part of my life from childhood. The songs of the 1960s and 1970s became attached to memories, people and places.
They became the music of my life.
Life Changed, So Did the Music
As I grew older, my soundtrack changed with me. Disco became part of my young adult years. Later came country and still more voices and styles.
I discovered that we don’t leave the old music behind.
The Wider World of Music
In 2013, I joined the virtual world Red Light Center. Its clubs, DJs, dances and music events introduced me to songs and genres I might never have discovered on my own.
After years when music had become more private, music became social again.
From Listener to Song Crafter
In 2025, I discovered AI-generated music and something changed. For the first time, I had tools that allowed someone without traditional musical training to turn ideas, memories and feelings into songs.
I wasn’t simply making music.
I Began Hearing Myself
At first, crafting songs was simply exciting. I could take an idea, shape it into words, experiment with voices and styles, and hear something come back that had never existed before.
But the more songs I made, the more personal they became.
Memories became songs. People I cared about became songs. Feelings I had carried for years became songs. Even questions I had never been able to answer found their way into the music.
For much of my life, there were parts of myself I kept hidden and parts I didn’t completely understand.
Somehow, music gave me a way to begin talking about them.
The songs weren’t giving me all the answers.
They were giving me a way to finally ask the questions out loud.
And as the collection grew, I began noticing something else.
The songs kept returning to the same parts of life.
The Twelve Life Themes
As my collection grew, twelve themes began to emerge.
I didn’t choose them because I needed categories for a website. I recognized them because I had lived them.
Each one is a chapter of my life — and a doorway into the music it inspired.
Childhood
When the wanting began,
Growing Up
Becoming while still hiding.
Family
Love and things left unsaid.
Friendship
Wanting to be known. and seen
Wanting
The longing that never left.
Love
The people who changed my world.
Secrets
What I kept hidden from the people I loved.
Mistakes
Choices, regrets and lessons.
Loss
What and who didn’t stay.
Beginnings
Starting over and new beginngs
Aging
A longer view of life.as I grow older
Questions
The ones I still carry and the answers i still seek.
Every Life Has a Soundtrack
I have spent more than seven decades listening to music.
For most of those years, other people’s songs helped me remember, understand, celebrate, escape, hope and dream.
Then I discovered I could craft songs from the stories of my own life.
That is what Soundtrack of Our Lives has become for me — a place to share those songs, the stories behind them, and what I am learning by listening to my own life a little more closely.
But this isn’t only my story.
You have a soundtrack too.
Songs attached to people you loved. Places you remember. Things you lost. Moments that changed you. Questions you may still be asking.
Every life has a soundtrack.
Sometimes we just have to stop and listen to it.