Written over the course of the Spring 2026 semester and recorded on a Tascam Portastudio in my home office, this seven-song collection approaches happiness through the lens of authentic and meaningful existence. Influenced by the ancient and contemporary texts we encountered in Susan Rinard’s Happiness class, my working concept of happiness is "the virtue of being well." This view emphasizes one’s embeddedness in, and relation to, one’s environment (social and natural; hence the album cover featuring my name rendered in satellite imagery).

The seven-track album/EP begins by establishing that while happiness is ultimately up to the individual, it is achieved through the ways we relate to other people.

“Condemned to be Free” draws on Sartre’s existentialism. Authenticity demands that we embrace the crushing responsibility of our choices: “you want somebody willing to own you, but they’re not / you are condemned to be free.” Radical freedom only becomes an intelligible “self” through intersubjective tension and being seen by the Other; our self-conception is therefore inextricably linked to other people. The song also references bad faith (“when you’ve been a friend you wouldn’t trust yourself”), the self-deception that denies our freedom by blaming others. Its opposite, what we might call Sartrean happiness, involves willing the freedom of others and thereby fully embracing our own.

“Before You Fell” explores the temptation to find happiness by returning to an idealized past. Inspired by Plato’s emphasis on aligning oneself with ideal Forms and his nostalgic longing for a perfect otherworldly realm, the song asks whether rational reflection and recollection of a better time (to which we might one day return) can bring happiness. However, fixating on a heavenly ideal risks ignoring and overlooking the possibility of happiness in this imperfect life.

“Come Away From It” shifts the focus to finding inner stability amid external chaos, without necessarily invoking an eternal other world. Drawing on Epictetus’s dichotomy of control, the song asserts that even when “fate [has] its way with [us],” we retain power over our responses: “Feelings control you, or you control them.” Resilience comes from stepping back from what is not up to us.

“Death Is Nothing to Me” confronts the finality of death (Epicurus) while offering a critique of hedonism in its various forms (Bentham, Mill, and Epicureanism). The verses highlight the difficulty of pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain (“Absence of pain could be felt in a dream / If not for the bane insomnia of my being”), while the chorus shifts to parallel major to affirm Epicurus’s famous line. Basing happiness primarily on pleasure ultimately limits meaning to oneself as the horizon of value; complete absence of pain is only achievable in death, which we cannot experience.

“Could It Be?” questions whether there is even an autonomous self to make happy. It weaves together ancient Indian and East Asian ideas: we are different iterations of the same underlying reality (Upanishads), that reality is ultimately ungraspable (Daoism), and we are empty of independent essence (“could it be so empty”—Buddhism’s doctrine of emptiness/śūnyatā). Liberation arises through detachment and letting go. Embracing radical interconnectedness also points toward Robin Wall Kimmerer’s idea of mutual flourishing.

“Divine Play” explicitly references the Hindu concept of līlā: life as the playful drama of the divine. Our suffering and identities are modes of this cosmic entertainment. Happiness comes from wholeheartedly embracing one’s role in the play: “Write yourself into this tragedy / A life worth dying for, joyfully.” Rather than an otherworldly purpose (as in Plato), divinity is immanent within lived experience. This resonates with Dan Haybron’s notion of attunement: psychic affirmation is possible even amid suffering when we see our toils as part of a larger cosmic dance.

The album closes with “For Its Own Sake,” a celebration of virtue ethics (Aristotle and Nussbaum). Fulfilling one’s function means being fully authentic: “I’m doing the best I can, being all that I am.” Authentic activity is pursued “for its own sake,” and positive feelings are merely a byproduct. This moves from mere psychological subjective well-being to something like objective flourishing. As Aristotle argues, eudaimonia (happiness/flourishing) is the only true end in itself. This final track synthesizes the preceding explorations into a call to action—happiness as the virtue of being well.

Sam Miller is a man of unique talents. A rare musical soul who thrives in our modern day of synthesizers and microchips, but who would be equally content playing Bach fugues in a cathedral filled with orangutans. His musical output is driven by curiosity and exploration, noticeably lacking the self-aggrandizing spirit of so much pop music.

From the mysterious deserts of New Mexico, Miller is at once a songwriter, composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. He is a master storyteller, who walks a tightrope pitched between the beauty of life’s complexities and the abyss of the subconscious. His lyrics grow more dynamic and intriguing with each listen. An elegant love song is simultaneously a riddle that would tickle the ghost of Lewis Carroll.

With his most recent album, In One Place at a Time, Miller slyly sings the voice of your inner thoughts. No paradox is safe. He reflects on regret, lost opportunities, and love, but does not dwell on any one idea too long. Soon enough he is pointing out the pointlessness of such fixations. “By the time that I made it, I’d gone too far,” he laments. Keep moving. The moment is passing. You are still in it.

One of the most impressive measures of Miller’s writing is how the melodic content of the songs carry the weight of his... more credits released November 29, 2019

Matt Badger (drums, tracks 4-11), Shenandoah Davis (vocals, tracks 4-11), Chris Cunningham (electric guitar, tracks 6 and 7), David Schripsema (trumpet, omnichord and vocals on track 7, and drums on track 9), Rebecca Huffman (violin, tracks 4 and 8), Eva Avenue (vocals, tracks 4, 6 and 7) & Anton Patzner (violin, track 2).

This isn't the first time that a voice threw you. Names come to mind: Mark Lanegan, Neko Case. Cash. Those heavy voices, rich and consuming, carried within tunes so effortlessly the songs themselves felt like musical Trojan horses. This has happened before. But never quite like this. This is You Need To Hear It, the debut from singer/songwriter Sam Miller.

Raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sam took his philosophy degree and his guitar and moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, where he played trumpet, bass, and guitar throughout the Canadian countryside with the bilingual folkrock group Wintermitts. He then returned to Albuquerque to front his own groups Grand Canyon and Jenny Invert, while also touring extensively with longtime friend Ryan McGarvey. In 2011, Sam moved to Seattle, Washington, where he established himself as a multi-instrumentalist producer and performer, supporting the likes of Ravenna Woods, Benjamin Verdoes, and many other distinctive Northwest talents. During this time in Seattle, Sam also recorded the collection of songs you have before you.

The experience of playing just about every kind of instrument in just about every kind of band has given Sam a profound pop sensibility and a fluency for creating deep, decadent arrangements. Think Mikal Cronin and Richard Swift crafting the perfect ballad for a hangover. But don't waste time seeking saccharine in this piano pop. Every element is as intentional, precise, and cutting as a forged blade. There is sweetness, yes--it's here in abundance--but it is of a molasses glow, stable and honest. As the melody evolves on "Doesn't Take Much," the strings and piano unfold like the petals of a flower seen through a kaleidoscope. When Sam bellows "When I dive/ into our shallow history/ You and I/ Are merely memories," on the exquisitely layered title track, the weightless waltz of the melody betrays the heft of the message it carries.

Here, in these songs, is the warmth of a campfire. Here is prom night angst and the wooden yawn of your father’s house at 3AM. Here is the exhaustion of moving, of seeing your life as a castle of cardboard boxes. Here, singing all of it, is the voice of Sam Miller. And you need to hear it. credits released July 1, 2014

This is a compilation/mixtape of my favorite recordings from the past three years in Seattle. Twas an honor to work with all these good friends and amazing musicians:

August Johnson David Schripsema Sean Alkire Nick Shadel Ian Williams Matt Badger Kyle O'Quin Lizzy Allen Chris Cunningham Aaron Benson Juan Quiroga Paul Kowalczyk Hanna Benn Jon Maus Karolina Faflak Rebecca Huffman Austin Larkin Whitney Flinn

Mastered by Sean McCullough Photo by Will Miller write-up by Ben Taylor 91.7 WSUM

This album is dedicated to my wife, Lily. We eloped towards the end of 2019 before the world shut down. These pieces were written between now and then, through the pandemic and challenging personal tribulations that we've had to face together.

'Lilies' is expressive of the hope that these rotten years we've been trudging through will fertilize the soil of tomorrow from which a new beauty will emerge. I'm releasing 'Lilies' in the dead of Winter, when this reminder is perhaps most needed.

I recorded the album on my late grandmother in-law's Knight upright piano. There’s a note from the manufacturer inside the piano that says “This instrument has been specially constructed to withstand severe extremes of heat, dryness, humidity and central heating in any part of the world”. This rugged piano has helped us withstand the past few years, as well.