One of my favorite female vocalists is Malaysian singer-songwriter Lyia Meta, who I’ve featured a number of times on this blog over the past two and a half years. (You can read my previous reviews listed under “Related” at the end of this post.) Based in Kuala Lumpur, Lyia is an astonishingly talented, gracious and lovely woman, with a dazzling powerhouse voice to match. (She’s also a highly accomplished visual artist, and last year did a wonderful pencil drawing of me, which was very flattering to say the least!)

With her deep, smoky and resonant vocal style, and masterful ability to cover multiple genres ranging from blues and hard rock to pop and country with ease, she’s become an international music star, winning numerous music awards over the past several years, including the 2018 Josie World Music Artist Award, which was presented to her in Nashville, Tennessee. More recently, her song “All of My Love” has been nominated for an International Portuguese Music Awards People’s Choice Award in two categories.

While Lyia often writes her own songs, she also collaborates with other songwriters and musicians from time to time, not only to broaden her own musical horizons, but also to support other songwriters. With that in mind, for her latest single “Now I Know the Reason Why” she collaborated with songwriters Mike Jones and Jerry Jake Howard, Sr. The song was inspired by a true story and written from first hand experience, and although it’s not Lyia’s own story, the powerful lyrics strongly resonated with her. The song was produced by R. Gary Farmer, who also played organ and keyboards. Session musicians Michael Headrick played steel and lead guitar, Chips Roland played bass and Al Samples played drums.

“Now I Know the Reason Why” is a beautiful, blues-soaked country song about the sorrow and pain that comes from losing someone you love to another. The bittersweet lyrics are from the point of view of a woman seeing the man she loves marry another woman. It’s the kind of heartbreaking torch song Patsy Cline could have sung back in her day, and Lyia’s marvelous heart-wrenching and bluesy vocal performance makes us believe she’s lived every word of it. Listening to her sing, it’s easy to think she’s from Nashville rather than Kuala Lumpur. The instrumentals and music arrangement are superb, and I especially love the terrific organ, piano and steel guitar that give the track its wonderful country flavor. It’s a great song.

I saw my baby with her yesterday
Oh how it hurts, it was his wedding day
I saw my love walk down the aisle
I heard the words they had to say
I heard them say ’til death do us part’
Every word was hurting my heart
And I saw the way he kissed her
And how he held her so tight

I saw the way he held her hand in his
And lord, all I could do was cry
Because I’m losing the one who loves me
And now I know the reason why

I saw the way he kissed her
And I saw the look in her eyes
And then I heard them say ‘I do’
And all I could do was cry

I saw my love walk down the aisle with his new love
And then I watched them drive away
Lord I lost my true love on that day
And now I know, yes now I know the reason why

Connect with Lyia: Website / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Stream her music on Spotify / Soundcloud / Apple Music / Reverbnation
Purchase on iTunes / Amazon / Google Play