British Columbia country singer-songwriter Melissa Endean wrote much of her October 16 single “Red Dirt Life” during a lunch break from work.
Photo credit: Richard Leon Gauthier
After watching her paycheque disappear into bills, Melissa Endean found herself thinking about money during a break from work. “I ain’t in it for the fame, just the money,” she thought, then realized the line might make a good country lyric. She opened the digital audio workstation (DAW) on her phone, found the beginnings of a melody and headed to a small park near her office. For the next hour, she walked in circles with her headphones on, singing fragments into the phone. She says she had most of the song written before she had to return to work.
The result was “Red Dirt Life,” a single the British Columbia singer-songwriter released October 16. The financial frustration behind it was real, but Endean wanted the song to be playful. “Life is hard enough,” she said in an email interview. Working all day and struggling to cover expenses can be discouraging, she explained, and she wanted to capture the moments of enjoyment people manage to find anyway.
Endean works full time and is raising a family while pursuing country music independently. The demands of her paid employment affect when she can write, how she budgets for recording and which performances she can take on. She makes the most of the time available, whether that means planning a studio session carefully or using a lunch break to work through a melody.
For “Red Dirt Life,” she worked with producer Jeff Dalziel, who had mentored her for several months before they recorded together. He sent her a rough mix that opened with a pulsing piano bass line, an addition Endean immediately loved. She heard it as a reference to Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5,” a song about the frustrations of working life. “The Dolly nod was all Jeff!” she said. The reference fitted the slightly defiant, humorous approach she had wanted for her own song.
The title came from another familiar piece of music. Endean was a musical-theatre fan growing up, and one of her favourite songs was “It’s the Hard-Knock Life” from Annie. While looking for the final line of her chorus, she adapted that phrase into “red dirt life,” which she calls a “countryfied twist” on the childhood favourite. She describes the finished chorus as playful and almost chant-like.
Dalziel’s role extended beyond the arrangement. He encouraged Endean to identify what made her work distinctive and to stop second-guessing herself, a lesson she recalls in characteristically direct terms: find what makes her unique and “get the hell out of my own way.” On “Red Dirt Life,” he handled production, recording, mixing and mastering, and played piano, guitars, drums and other instruments. The credits Endean supplied also list Kevin “The General” Neal on pedal steel, Brendan Waters on B3 organ, and Karen Oliveira and Brandi Sidoryk on backing vocals.
Country music has been part of Endean’s life since childhood. She grew up in British Columbia’s Interior and performed with her sisters in a family country band. As a younger musician, she explored jazz and electronic music, among other styles. When she returned to performing in 2022 after a five-year break, she went back to the country sound and vocal approach she had grown up with. Her voice, she says, has become grittier, and she is more comfortable with how she wants to sing.
There was another consideration behind that return. Endean says that, when she was younger, she worried about whether she would be accepted as a gay country artist, a concern that contributed to her moving away from the genre. She now sees more LGBTQ+ performers represented in country music and feels less pressure to accommodate other people’s expectations. “I don’t feel the need to make myself fit into anyone else’s idea of what a country artist should be,” she said.
The stories she wants to tell are part of that decision. Endean cites Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn as influences because they addressed subjects that could unsettle listeners, from people overlooked by society to reproductive choices. She sees room in country music for songs about addiction, inequality and lives that do not always fit familiar expectations of the genre. That interest in difficult subjects sits alongside her willingness to make something lighter, as she has with “Red Dirt Life.”
Her earlier single “’Til We’re Dirt,” released in 2022, approaches addiction through a fictional storyline. Endean has spoken about her own experience with addiction and says that her professional work in mental health and addictions has reinforced her understanding of its consequences. Some people survive addiction, as she did, while others do not, and she wanted the song to acknowledge that reality.
She also draws a firm boundary around the personal histories she encounters at work. Her songwriting may begin with something she has experienced herself or with an observation that stays with her, but she says she would never put a counselling client’s private story directly into a song or video. She assembled “’Til We’re Dirt” from different impressions and experiences to create fiction. Preserving the trust people place in her professionally is a responsibility she takes seriously.
The approach to “Red Dirt Life” is different in tone, although it comes from the same habit of finding song ideas in daily experience. Endean wanted to turn the exasperation of working hard and watching bills consume a paycheque into something enjoyable to sing. Away from the studio, she remains careful about where her time and money go, and she credits her partner with supporting the music as she makes those decisions.
Endean says the response to her earlier single “Outlaw” and her 2025 BC Country Music Association nominations encouraged her to keep releasing new work. She plans to follow “Red Dirt Life” with several more singles over the coming months, eventually collecting them into an EP. For now, the October release stands on its own; she wants to give each song time to reach listeners before putting out the next one.
A sustainable music career, in Endean’s view, would allow her to continue recording and performing without having to choose between music and providing for her family. That means making practical decisions about opportunities as they arise, rather than assuming she can put the rest of her life on hold. “I’m not waiting for the perfect circumstances to make it happen,” she said. “I’m just figuring it out as I go, making it work, and building something one step at a time.”
