Album
The Way We Shine
Album · 13 tracks · June 2025 · by Mike Baker
A Pride Month album follows the distance between private truth and visible belonging, asking families and communities to make love unmistakable.
The story
The Way We Shine began with a father hearing his son come out and choosing love while knowing that good intentions do not guarantee the right words. That starting point matters because acceptance is often remembered through a few specific moments: the first response, the expression on a parent's face, what happens the next morning, and whether the relationship still feels safe.
The album expands from that family conversation into thirteen songs about LGBTQ+ identity, support, survival, faith, history, and joy. I wrote it for Pride Month, though its purpose reaches beyond a calendar observance. Pride is public because many people have been told to keep a central part of themselves hidden. The record asks what changes when home, friendship, faith, and community make room for the whole person.
The Way We Shine opens with visible identity and shared celebration. Still My Kid moves into the parent-child relationship, grounding love in continuity while leaving room for the parent to keep learning. Safe Here carries the larger obligation. Safety is built through language, behavior, protection, and what adults are willing to challenge when harm appears.
Welcome Light and Where You Land explore the communities people find when the first place does not fully receive them. Let Me Be Loud protects celebration from the demand to remain convenient. Don't Change to Stay names the cost of belonging that requires self-erasure.
All That We Are gathers identities without reducing a person to one label. Letters I Never Sent holds words delayed by fear, uncertainty, or the possibility of rejection. I Exist Anyway places dignity beyond permission, while Love Is Love (Still) enters the difficult space where faith and affirmation meet.
This Is the Chorus gives many voices a shared place without pretending one song speaks for every LGBTQ+ experience. We Were Always Here closes through history. Queer people have always been part of families, towns, churches, workplaces, art, and public life even when records or institutions tried to remove them.
The page needs to sound like an ally who listens and keeps learning. It should make no claim to represent an entire community. The strongest use of my voice is personal accountability: what I learned, where I fell short, how I repaired, and what I expect from other fathers, leaders, and neighbors when someone's safety or dignity is at stake.
The website also has an opportunity to help someone arriving in a vulnerable moment. A short resource section for LGBTQ+ young people and families belongs beside the story. Community members with lived experience should review the finished page before it goes public.
If you need someone to talk to
Support for LGBTQ+ young people and their families
This record is about a parent choosing love and a kid deciding whether it is safe to be known. If you are living somewhere in that, you do not have to work it out alone.
- The Trevor Project — crisis support for LGBTQ+ young people. Call 1-866-488-7386, text START to 678-678, or chat online. Free, confidential, 24/7, anywhere in the US.
- PFLAG — support and local chapters for parents, families and friends of LGBTQ+ people. Find a chapter.
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988 in the US, any time.
If you only have a few minutes
Start here
01Still My Kid
A parent's first responsibility becomes clear through continued love, steadiness, and the willingness to learn after a child shares a deeply personal truth.
02Safe Here
Acceptance moves into action as the song asks what families and communities must do to make belonging dependable.
03Don't Change to Stay
The track rejects belonging purchased through self-erasure and speaks to anyone who has been asked to become smaller to remain included.
04We Were Always Here
The closer places present-day Pride within a longer history, honoring people whose lives and contributions survived attempted erasure.
Tracks
- 01The Way We Shine
- 02Still My Kid
- 03Safe Here
- 04Welcome Light
- 05Where You Land
- 06Let Me Be Loud
- 07Don't Change to Stay
- 08All That We Are
- 09Letters I Never Sent
- 10I Exist Anyway
- 11Love Is Love (Still)
- 12This Is the Chorus
- 13We Were Always Here
Track by track
01The Way We Shine
The title track celebrates the relief and strength that grow when identity no longer has to remain hidden for other people's comfort.
02Still My Kid
A parent responds to disclosure by protecting the relationship and beginning the work of understanding what their child needs.
03Safe Here
Belonging becomes a daily practice shaped by language, protection, respect, and the courage to interrupt harm.
04Welcome Light
A person enters a place where their presence receives warmth, giving community the feeling of arrival after a long period of caution.
05Where You Land
Chosen family and affirming community provide steadiness when inherited relationships or familiar institutions feel uncertain.
06Let Me Be Loud
Joy claims public space after years of pressure to remain quiet, grateful, or easy for other people to accept.
07Don't Change to Stay
The song protects identity from relationships and communities that make continued belonging depend on concealment.
08All That We Are
A whole person holds history, relationships, work, identity, contradiction, and possibility beyond any single description.
09Letters I Never Sent
Unspoken words reveal the fear and longing that accumulate when honesty feels capable of changing a relationship forever.
10I Exist Anyway
Human dignity remains intact when institutions, laws, families, or strangers refuse to offer recognition.
11Love Is Love (Still)
The song enters questions of faith and affirmation while keeping the life and dignity of the person at the center.
12This Is the Chorus
Many voices gather around a shared declaration while their individual histories and needs remain distinct.
13We Were Always Here
The final song restores continuity to LGBTQ+ history and remembers people who lived, loved, created, and belonged across generations.
Where it leads
The Way We Shine asked families and communities to turn love into visible safety and belonging. Twelve days later, Hell Wasn't the End followed a survivor through coercion, escape, trauma, and the uneven work of reclaiming a life.