The Songwriter to Physicist Pipeline

What I'm about to do.

If you follow me online or subscribe to my email list, thank you. You probably started following me because you liked my songwriting. Even though you know I’m studying physics now, you’re still following me and perhaps supporting me by subscribing through Substack, Patreon, or my website.

I’m transferring into the Physics program at NC State this fall (next Monday, in fact, August 18^th, 2025). I’m coming from Durham Tech with a 4.0 GPA. I was on the President’s List and Student Advisory Board. I’m a member of the Phi Theta Kappa honor society.

Almost the cover of my first book, photo by Lisa MacIntosh.

Will I still write songs, teach songwriting, and make albums? That’s a complicated question, and you deserve a thorough answer.

For 25 years, my music career was great because of you. I had exactly the career I wanted — small enough to stay independent; big enough to make a living doing something I was good at and contribute to the joy of others. I tried, like everyone, to respond to changes in the music business, and then COVID hit like a giant meteor. The lockdown gave me a chance to wonder how I was going to pay a mortgage, raise a child, and care for my aging mother.

When I was totally spinning out, my girlfriend suggested I go to the community college and take a math class. I thought it was a terrible idea. However, I had also gotten used to the fact that she’s usually right. Before you get mad at her, she was in no way suggesting that I go to college. Honestly, she’d rather have more of my attention than she’s going to get for the next few years. All she knew was that I was good at math, curious about science, and needed an ego boost.

Paul Ford, may he rest in peace, and Johnny Waken.

I took the placement test at Durham Tech, and they were quite excited to talk to me afterward. They told me I could start right away earning an associate’s degree in whatever they had to offer. I told them I just wanted to take a class. Might take another one sometime if I didn’t hate it.

By the time I took the second class, I had already been guaranteed transfer to NC State. They said if they didn’t have room in the physics department, I could do aerospace engineering.

I don’t know how to make sense of it. I still feel completely unprepared and overwhelmed. My girlfriend asks me, “How are your grades?” I reluctantly admit that I have straight As, and she says, “That’s called anxiety.”

Right again.

Johnny Waken and Austin McCall take a much-needed shower.

The question most people ask next is, “What are you going to do with it?” That’s fair, but all I can tell you right now is what I’m probably not going to do with it. Here’s a brief outline of all the things I’m not likely to do with a physics degree:

I. Stop writing.

II. Stop playing music.

III. Stop making stuff.

IV. Convert to Zoroastrianism.

There are probably more things, but that’s an effective overview.

However, you may have heard that physics is a challenging subject. I can confirm. I’ve never been good at giving less than 100% of myself to a goal, and this is a substantial goal. I’m still raising a teenager. I care for my mother, who has Alzheimer’s and lives with me. In a week, I’ll be studying at a major global university. I have one and a half unreleased albums, and I am committed to finishing and releasing both. Some of you helped fund one of them, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever made.

I can’t imagine walking on stage and delivering a great show any time in the next three years. There won’t be any time for touring.

I don’t know where this is or who took the photo, but I still have these boots.

I’ll probably write a lot more about physics, but I’ll continue to write whatever is on my mind. I’ll accidentally write some songs, for sure, and I have met very few physicists who aren’t also musicians — there are two acoustic guitars always lying out in the common room of the physics department at NC State. I’m also going to keep painting, because I can always paint for twenty minutes after dinner. I can’t practice, book, promote, and play a show for twenty minutes after dinner.

You can subscribe to my email list on the home page of jonathanbyrd.com, or you can subscribe to me at jonathanbyrd.substack.com. Right now, it’s the same thing, and that has saved me a lot of work. Substack offers paid subscriptions, and I’d be grateful if you thought of that as a crowdfunding scholarship. Most of what I write is free for anyone to read, but I have used the paywall for a couple of things that took a lot of extra effort.

I won’t be on social media at all.

My wifi password.

I guess I’m giving you a chance to leave. If you’re here for the music or even supporting my music financially, I’m being one hundred percent honest with you, and I’m being one hundred percent honest with myself. I have limits.

At the end of this journey, I hope to be a financially responsible adult doing something else I’m good at, and I hope to make music again. Because I love it. I love the way it brings people together. I love that I’m writing this to some of you who have been on this list for over twenty years, just because I played some good songs. I love that some of you have come to a show and introduced yourself and, though we had never met, I knew who you were because I’d seen your name in arial font so many times. I love looking out into the audience and seeing you laugh and cry, knowing that you are feeling something because, once, I felt something, and I made a clever little device called a song that doesn’t even exist in space but only in time, and I put my feelings into it so that I could share them with you — not like a gift that gets handed to you, but like a spiritual wormhole that goes into your heart and connects our joy and heartache together in ways that will defy anything I am about to learn in the next three years.

That’s why I’ll be back.

But you don’t have to wait for me. It’s a lot to ask.

I didn’t get a full ride, but I did get some support. The loans are relatively small. If you want to help me, a paid subscription on Substack will probably go the farthest and feel the most rewarding to you, and I’ll have less debt on the other side.

No matter what you do, I’m grateful to you. Remember me when you’re at a show and the wormhole opens in your heart. Join me in the common room of Universe University, where there are at least two guitars.

Your fan,

Jonathan Byrd