Writing Love Songs Ain't Easy, but Elise Lieberth Found a Way With "Invincible"

“Invincible” is singer-songwriter Elise Lieberth’s attempt at writing a love song for her husband.

It’s not easy for her to write love songs. It doesn’t come naturally.

“I was pretty much heartbroken for a good ten years of my life,” the Colorado native says. “That’s where I draw most of my inspiration from: heartache and the pain that comes with it. So it’s been really hard for me to write a love song. It’s been about fifteen years since I wrote a love song. It really pushes me out of my comfort zone.”

The video for “Invincible,” which includes images of married couples, including Lieberth and her husband, premiered on March 6. It ended up being one of her favorite songs on the album that bears the same name.

She sees the video and song as telling a story of a marriage that withstands the test of time. She co-wrote the eight songs on the album, her third, with Rachel James of Denver country band Dearling. James also produced the album, which has a modern pop country sensibility.


“I gave her a lot of free rein,” Lieberth says. “I said, ‘Let’s do something fun and creative. You take the songs where you think they should go.’ She really felt like my voice would fit in pop. I love pop, and I hadn’t really experimented with it, so I really thought this is a way to do that.”

Lieberth managed to pen a love song. She jokes that she didn’t feel like she could be a legitimate songwriter if she couldn’t write a love song, but the songs on the album cover a range of themes. It’s not all love and happiness, either.

Although she is in a loving marriage and ribs her husband for stealing her muse, Lieberth writes from a darker place. She’s had plenty of real heartache in her life. Her father, Garry, suffered from severe bipolar disorder and was fatally shot breaking into a Jefferson County house in 2014 a few hours after she called the police on him. She was protecting her family, but the incident naturally left her very shaken.

Lieberth also suffers from bouts of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and she touches on that struggle on the album.

“Most of my songs are written from a very real perspective,” she says. “I’ve actually been through a ton of life. I’ve been raped. I’ve been beaten. I’ve been abused. My dad was pretty abusive. I’ve been cheated on. All those things. I choose to find the silver lining in all of that.”

She hopes people who listen to her music will find some inspiration as well, and perhaps pull themselves out of dark places, using their past to be stronger in the future and no longer be a victim. She says James helped her write less literally than she has on past albums in an effort to reach more people, and the resulting songs feel more mature to Lieberth.

“Invincibile” also marks a comeback of sorts for Lieberth, who gave up music several years ago to focus on being a mother. At the time, she worried about her physical appearance and age and wondered if people even wanted to hear her anymore. She started writing songs again in 2018. Since she has released new material, Lieberth discovered that it wasn't true.

“It was kind of the opposite,” she says. “I found that the more time I took off from music, the more people were actually finding my originals.”

“Invincible” is available at eliselieberth.com.