Melissa Etheridge won a Grammy for her “Come to My Window,” but she wasn’t convinced the song would be a hit.
“I almost didn’t put it on my record. … I thought nobody would relate to it,” Etheridge, 62, exclusively told Us Weekly at the 2024 CMT Awards on Sunday, April 7, in Austin, Texas. “I thought it was too simple.”
Eventually, Etheridge’s mind was changed. “I had a bunch of friends go, ‘We think that’s a pretty good song, maybe you should keep it on,’” she recalled. “I was like, ‘Alright.’ … An artist never knows a hit song.”
While she never anticipated how popular the song would become, Etheridge told Us she’s “glad” it made such an impact.
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“Come to My Window” was released in 1993 as the second single from Etheridge’s fourth album, Yes I Am, and reached No. 25 on the Billboard charts. The song earned Etheridge the second Grammy Award of her career, taking home Best Female Rock Vocal Performance in 1995.
Days before the CMT Awards, it was announced that Etheridge’s songwriting prowess will be explored in a new docuseries, Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken, which hits Paramount+ in July. The two-part series will follow Etheridge as she works on a new song inspired by five incarcerated women at a prison in Kansas.
“It’s a concert film that we did at the Kansas State Women’s Penitentiary,” she told Us on Sunday. “I grew up in Leavenworth, Kansas, surrounded by prisons. And Johnny Cash, when I was little, came and performed at the Federal Penitentiary, but we didn’t get to see him. Only the prisoners did. And since then, I always was like, ‘Wow, I want to bring my music to the inmates and lift them up.’ And so we finally got it all together last year and we went to the Topeka Women’s Correctional Facility and I’m so proud of it.”
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The project is “about how music can lift people up” and “about the way we incarcerate people,” Etheridge continued.
Etheridge teased the docuseries in a statement when it was announced on Thursday, April 3. “I’m excited for audiences to join me on this powerful journey and hear these remarkable stories filled with pain and struggle but also hope and healing,” she said. “I hope that this docuseries shows viewers the challenges that women face in our prison system while also serving as a resource to those who currently are struggling.”
While gearing up for the release of her series, Etheridge is hitting the road to perform live. She kicked off the Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken tour last month and will wrap up the run of shows on April 20. Later this year, Etheridge is slated to join the Indigo Girls and Jewel on co-headlining tours.
