David Franz Faces Facts on His New Single “For My Own Health” [Premiere]

A little dark, a little weathered, a little unnerved, and definitely a little bit cynical is how you may choose to describe David Franz’s newest single “For My Own Health.” There’s a weariness to this new song, written about a failing relationship going nowhere but down. Optimism is for the pretender, the one who can’t admit the truth to themselves. All it does is keep you in a bad situation longer than you need to be, and it does more harm than good.

Franz sounds quite resigned throughout “For My Own Health,” a man who is willing to stop lying to himself and face the fact that it’s long past due to move on. The song is a taste of what’s to come on the singer and songwriter’s debut album To The Unknown, set for release on September 24th.

Describing the song in more detail, Franz commented, “While optimism is usually viewed as a positive feeling, it can discolour reality in a failing relationship and act more like a disease. When I realized that my own mind was playing tricks on me, telling me to stick it out in a relationship that was unhealthy, I wrote this song to allow myself permission to leave. This song is a resolute awakening… a self-inflicted slap to the face followed by a tight embrace of self and a resolved, confident, and decisive walk away from the past.”

Elaborating more on the context within which “For My Own Health” was written, he added, “I had to get out of the house and burn off some negative energy after a fight with my fiancée… so I went for a run. As I was about halfway through a three-mile run, I was thinking about how my optimism for the relationship had blinded me to the reality that the relationship was very unhealthy. The line ‘my optimism is a disease, my rose-colored glasses are making me bleed’ popped into my head and I kept singing it over and over while I ran all the way home so that I wouldn’t forget it. After I got home, the rest of the lyrics spilled out quickly and the guitar/bass riff for the verse followed soon after.

“The song wrote itself, I was just the conduit to verbalize the emotion and meaning. My hope is that the song can help others that are stuck in a negative space to put some clear words to their feelings, and then empower them to be decisive about making a change. It certainly did those things for me.”

The release of To The Unknown has been a long time coming for Franz, an emergence from the recording studio to now a revelation to the rest of the world. For many years, he has been highly regarded for his work as a producer and co-writer for other artists, and also as a founder of the Underground Sun and Underground Sol record labels.

Through working with so many other artists, Franz began to develop his own identity as a recording artist, and it’s all there to discover on To The Unknown, a modern-sounding record with a musical foundation in soul, blues, and desert rock. At its heart, the album is very confessional, full of self-examination, and reflection about personal growth. Showing a great degree of maturity in his songwriting, Franz makes a willing admission that personal growth is a requirement for the greater good, and it’s anything but a walk in the park.

It’s hard work, and it takes a lot of self-awareness to put that work in.

Artwork for “For My Own Health” by David Franz

Artwork for ‘To The Unknown’ by David Franz