Quinn was born in February 2004, erasing any doubts that his mama had. He went on the road with the band at just five weeks, proving a natural traveler. Rani’s mother often accompanied them, and out-of-town shows became excuses for visits to zoos and parks. When he was seven months, though, Rani had to admit that what she’d tried to convince herself was a plugged duct was actually growing.
“One night I had a really awful, gruesome dream,” she recalls, her lush alto growing slow and somber. It wasn’t so much the content of the dream that jolted her, but a sense of impending doom. “I woke up and immediately called the nurse to get me in for an appointment.” A biopsy indicated Stage Two breast cancer of a very fast-moving variety. In two weeks, Rani weaned Quinn. Then came a series of decisions, none of them easy, that confront many cancer patients: What kind of treatment to pursue? Whether to participate in a drug study? Eventually, she opted for a mastectomy, followed by chemotherapy, radiation, and a yearlong dose of a new drug that had recently been released.
Through it all, her singer-songwriter mind was percolating. She wasn’t actively writing because her energy was low and her focus was on recovery, but at some level, the music was there, pulling her through. Just before diagnosis, she’d heard a song played by a young band called Resophonics. She’d liked it enough to remember it, and when she got the news of the cancer, she immediately thought I need that song.
The appeal of the infectious romp with its gospel and old time country elements is easy to hear. “Joy Comes Back” is a call to overcome life’s tough patches: “I’ve been tied to the ground, Lord, I’m getting lighter every day. … I want to be ready when joy comes back to me.” After listening to the song repeatedly during treatment, its message to Rani was “you have to take care of your core until you’re ready to receive and give again. There’s a simultaneous acknowledgement that things positively suck and can get better.”
