Songfacts®:

• When Covid hit, introverts adapted to lockdown better than most. That was certainly the experience of the singer-songwriter Julia Cannon, who wrote the song "Glow" during this time.
  
  "I am an introvert and I love to give my energy to people in concentrated intentional increments of time, but there was a period of time right before Covid hit when I was spread thin and exhausted," she said on the Songfacts Podcast. "It's hard because you want to support everybody and go to shows and be there, but I'm so tired all the time. So when Covid hit, I felt, like, happy. Obviously not, but it felt good to be able to slow down, be home and do the things that I wanted to do and catch up on my shows."
  
  "I'm a mushy person," she added. "I feel like I give a lot of love, and some people have a different relationship with music and they may be trying to climb the ladder, play the game. When all that was away I just got to play music and see the people who I trusted the most. We were really prioritizing each other's safety and time, and talking about mental health. It felt really good, and that's what 'Glow' is about for me. It was like, Ah, I feel like the fullest version of myself because I'm not trying to be hyper-aware of who I can and can't trust and where my energy is going. Do I have enough time for this? Am I being a good partner?"
• Cannon had built a following on TikTok by the time she released this song on her album How Many. Her backstory is very unusual. Her mom is Filipino and her dad is of Panamanian and Jamaican decent. They raised her in Alaska, where she learned how to read with help from a karaoke machine - a staple of Filipino culture. Julia went south to attend Berklee College of Music in Boston, which was quite a culture shock.
  
  "You're not supposed to climb trees in Boston," she told Songfacts. "You can't pee in the woods. You're not allowed to have access to every rooftop - I ended up breaking into buildings and going to the roof because I just needed to have elevation again."
  
  After graduating, she moved to Nashville and started releasing music. Along the way she honed her skills at songwriting and production. The How Many album she crowdfunded and produced herself.