"My dad says I could sing before I could talk, if that's possible. I was always humming and things like that"

A playful exaggeration frames a deeper truth: music felt native before language ever did. The remark balances humor with intimacy, “if that’s possible” undercuts grandiosity while still asserting an early, instinctive bond with sound. It’s less a factual claim than a family lore moment, the kind of origin story parents repeat until it becomes part of self-understanding. Through that retelling, identity crystallizes: not just a person who sings, but someone for whom vocal expression precedes ordinary speech.

Humming functions as an infant’s bridge between feeling and articulation. It suggests self-soothing, curiosity, and experimentation with tone, rhythm, and breath. Long before grammar arrives, the body understands resonance. That early habit implies a constant, low-stakes apprenticeship: practicing without knowing it, rehearsing presence, learning to fill silence with melody. The phrase “always humming and things like that” carries a casual cadence that normalizes relentless musical engagement. It wasn’t performance yet; it was atmosphere.

There’s also the imprint of home and heritage. A parent’s observation does more than report; it authorizes. By attributing musical precocity to childhood, the narrative affirms continuity, talent as temperament, not just training. At the same time, the hedging, “if that’s possible”, accepts that memory is messy and affectionate, not forensic. That tension between myth and modesty keeps the story human.

To sing “before” talking points to music’s power to carry emotion without propositions. Singing becomes a first language: intuitive, affective, communal. That sensibility often shows up later as fearlessness with genre, a comfort with vulnerability, and a willingness to let the voice lead the message rather than merely deliver it.

Ultimately, the line captures an artist’s origin not as a single turning point but as a continuous hum, an always-on impulse to vocalize. It suggests that artistry is less a switch flipped by fame and more a lifelong frequency the body tunes to, long before words arrive to explain it.