After years in the making, musician Witty Youngman has released their EP album, “Forget-Her-Not.”
“[Music] has always kind of been a side gig, I started my music business, [Bad Fish Ruca], a couple years ago,” she said. “The EP came around as an idea in 2022 with my friend Derek Haukaas over at Frostline Studios when he won the Rasmuson Foundation Award and he gifted me to be chosen as the artist that he was going to support with his award.”
The album title, “Forget-Her-Not,” is named after a song she wrote four or five years ago. She says she has traveled with the song and played it at a number of MMIP celebrations and Indigenous Peoples Day celebrations.
The song is about reaching out to someone before they are “too far gone,” Youngman says.
“I had heard somebody’s survival story from a really bad relationship where she felt like she wasn’t being heard… Her ex-partner had told her, ‘Nobody is going to believe you,’” Youngman said. “She left that relationship and she found a healthier relationship and she was in a safer place where she felt that she could share her story. But hearing her tell me, ‘I felt like I was never going to be heard,’ just broke my heart.”
The person who inspired the song is happy and healthy, Youngman said, but they recognize that there are a lot of stories that don’t have the same outcome.
“I wanted to take that and turn it into something beautiful, and that’s where the song came from,” they said. “It connects to a lot of people up here, and touches on a story that a lot of Indigenous people have a lot of pain talking about. I just hope the song brings a little bit of healing.”
Youngman’s EP, “Forget-Her-Not,” is available on all streaming platforms.
Youngman is one of over a dozen musicians performing tomorrow, Nov. 15. at Williwaw for the Relief for Western Alaska Benefit Concert to support those affected by Typhoon Halong. The lineup runs from 2-11 p.m. and is family friendly from 2-6 p.m.
She will also be in the Nov. 18 Arctic Entries show at the Alaska Center for the Performing Arts.
You can listen to live music from Youngman every Wednesday at Williwaw from 6-10 p.m. at the Lavender Lounge.
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
