Clint Bierman ’97 dropped his medical school ambitions to pursue music and songwriting full time. Although not as predictable, this life has provided him with deeply enriching moments.

In October 2023, Bierman shared his story as part of the “Purpose and Place: Voices of Middlebury” event during the Burlington launch of For Every Future: The Campaign for Middlebury.

Watch Bierman’s talk above or read the transcript below.

Transcript

I wrote my first song in eighth grade.

It was eighth-grade graduation, and I performed it and it was a big hit.

It was a big hit. So I got the bug, I got the songwriting bug. And so I spent the next four years of high school writing songs.

And while my friends were out spraypainting barns and knocking mailboxes off with baseball bats, I was writing a rock opera about the janitor of my high school.

And it was awesome.

I then went to Middlebury College, and this is where the songwriting obsession really started. I absolutely love writing songs, and I spent a lot of time at Middlebury writing songs.

See, here’s the thing about writing songs is, it starts with this seed of an idea.

And when I get the seed, I can’t stop thinking about it. It becomes an absolute obsession for the next 24 to 72 hours. It’s all that’s going through my head at any time: gotta finish it. It’s like this puzzle that every piece has to fit perfectly together, and I can’t stop it.

It’s just an absolute obsession.

But meanwhile, at Middlebury College, I was premed. I was premed from the time I was in fifth grade through junior to senior year of college.

And I got to that point senior year, and I spent all my time in the science buildings.

And I got to that point, I was like, I’m only gonna be young once. I gotta follow this obsession, this passion.

So I gave up premed and I moved to Colorado and I started a band called The Grift with a bunch of Middlebury alums, then moved back here in 2001, where I have lived as a professional songwriter for 20-plus years.

Now, let me tell you what it’s like being a professional songwriter for 20-plus years in Vermont. It’s not easy.

It is a grind, one might say. It is a lot of driving, a lot of wrapping cable, and a lot of performing and then going home.

And then I have so many different avenues where I teach kids how to song write in a camp. And I go to the schools and I teach songwriting with kids.

It’s just so much.

And then I go home and there’s this stack of bills on the counter, and I’d say at least once a week for the past 20 years, I have thought, “Why am I not a doctor? This could have been so much easier.”

But let me tell you what it’s like. It’s like having a toddler.

I had a very headstrong little man. When he was a toddler, this kid could push my buttons. He could make me so frustrated. He showed me rage that I didn’t even understand existed.

And if you’re a parent, you’ve been there, but it only took one “I love you, Dad” before all of it is washed away.

And that would fill my vessel in an instant.

That’s what it’s like being a songwriter.

You work hard, you grind, and then it only takes these small moments where something fills your vessel.

For example, I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at a mall the first time I heard my song on the radio. And it’s that moment that everybody talks about. You’re like You’re like, “[Gasp! Gasp!] What? This is—!”

Here’s another fill-up-my-vessel:

Recently at a show, a woman came up to me, and she just gave me a hug.

And I had never met this woman. And she looked at me and she said, “You literally saved my life because I found your song in a very dark place in my life.”

So it turns out I’m not a doctor, but I’m still saving lives.

But most recently, the thing that has filled my vessel and allowed me to keep pursuing this obsession in this career is the other day I was in the kitchen and that headstrong little toddler is now 11 years old.

And I was listening to him play piano, and he’s never had a piano lesson.

He’s never had songwriting lessons, but he’s been around it his entire life.

And I could hear him start playing a chord progression over and over again, and I could just see his wheels turning.

And then I heard the slightest bit of mumble of just a little bit of melody, and I started to hear some lyrics.

And I knew at that moment that he was starting to write his first song.

Thank you.