About
I write from where the tide meets truth. I’m Riaan M. Odendaal — writer, storyteller and lifelong observer of people, places and the strange ways life teaches us what matters. My songs begin with words. Some come from family, some from memory, some from love and loss, faith, food, friendship, humour, distance, ordinary days and the occasional uncomfortable truth. They move through country, Americana, folk, acoustic and ballad territory because that is where many of my stories seem most at home. I’m not trying to become a recording artist. I’m giving stories another way to live. My life has been shaped on both sides of the Atlantic — from South Africa to San Antonio and the Texas Hill Country, and back again. Those places, and the people I have known in them, inevitably find their way into what I write. These are songs about real people, real moments and things worth remembering. Some are deeply personal. Some are simply fun. All of them started with something I wanted to say. **Wisdom by Riaan M. Odendaal** *Truth needs no rage. Only a spine.*