Many performers live for applause. Michelle Lewis just wants to make you cry. 

“For me, music is always more interesting the deeper you dig emotionally," She says. "My passion and my love is more centered in those sad, melancholy songs.”

If that sounds like a lot of despair, it isn't. The sad songs leave you smiling. Her joyful songs leave you in tears. Yes, there is hardship and tragedy. No, Michelle Lewis is not depressed. As an artist, she lives for the paradox of the uplifting lament. Her sorrow is always a totem for love. Your tears flow for the strength of the bond not the pain of the fracture. This duality makes hers such a fascinating voice.

More polished than folk and more personal than pop, Michelle writes intensely visual songs with a gut punch of emotion. As a storyteller, she explores life's defining moments, juggling the immediacy of first-hand experience with the serenity of emotional wisdom. Her lyrics find beauty in sadness, her music is rich with melody. Intimate folk lyrics wash over over a whirlpool of lush production. Refrains of acoustic virtuosity accompany modern soundscapes that might keep a second home in dream-pop. Guided by her musical influences — Paul Simon, Joni Mitchell, and Patty Griffin among others — Michelle's style is truly her own. 

Much of her catalog interprets the events in her life, just don’t ask her who or when or why. But she’s always listening.

Hypnotic finger-style guitar melodies give away her Berklee College of Music education. Her fingers move swiftly and lightly over the guitar, an exacting technique applying all five fingers to plucking patterns that build immersive melodies. Her live shows contain an astonishing lack of strumming.

Michelle tours globally from her current home in Los Angeles, softly singing her heart out from Belgium to Wyoming. This Fall she'll tour her new full-length album, All That’s Left, through Europe and the US. She has been a regular at Hotel Cafe in Los Angeles, and just across the river from her longtime home in Boston at Club Passim.

On YouTube, Michelle's single, "Run Run Run,” found a devoted audience among Boston Marathon runners. The song and video were featured on the national 2014 broadcast of the race, and to date the music video has amassed more than 400,000 views. Written at her home just four blocks from the finish line prior to the events of 2013, the song transformed when Michelle played for a Boston audience one day after the marathon bombings. In that moment the song took on a different, special meaning for her in her home town. “It’s all about looking ahead – not looking back,” said Michelle. “I originally wrote the song for a friend, but it wound up helping me heal.” Fundraiser proceeds from single sales raised more than $1,600 toward the city's recovery efforts.

Michelle's first full-length album release, This Time Around, arrived in 2004. She has been a longtime collaborator with producer Anthony J. Resta (Elton John, Duran Duran, Shawn Mullins), spanning their work on her EPs Broken (2009) and Paris (2011), her second full-length album, The Parts Of Us That Still Remain (2014), and her latest album All That’s Left (2018).