Watch Sara Bareilles Discuss Her Oscar Shortlisted Original Song for Ryan White’s Doc ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’

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When Sara Bareilles took the stage to speak at the Luckman Club at Soho House West Hollywood on Friday, she was surrounded by an audience that understood the unique challenges and joys of writing music. The intimate room was filled with members of the Alliance for Women Film Composers, all of whom were eager to hear the Grammy winner and Tony nominee discuss “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet,” the song she wrote with Brandi Carlile for “Come See Me in the Good Light” that landed on the Oscar shortlist for Best Original Song.

Bareilles was joined by AWFC co-president Allyson Newman for a wide-ranging conversation about Bareilles’ involvement in IndieWire Honoree Ryan White’s Apple documentary about the late poet and activist Andrea Gibson and Bareilles’ approach to her entire artistic career.

“I got introduced to a lot of their video sort of blogs around the cancer diagnosis and I couldn’t get over how much humor and buoyancy they were able to weave into such a dark diagnosis,” Bareilles said of her first encounters with Gibson. “I thought that was a part of why I think they’re a miracle worker.”

Bareilles explained that she wasn’t always attached as a songwriter. She simply believed in the producing team’s vision of telling Gibson’s story and joined as an investor and executive producer. Getting the opportunity to turn Gibson’s poetry into song lyrics was just an added bonus.

Come See Me in The Good Light at Luckman Club at Soho House on January 09, 2026 in West Hollywood, California.

“They were trying to make this film in a different way and not go to big studios and not go to big movie houses,” she said. “They wanted it to stay very bespoke. They wanted it to be people who really loved Andrea and understood the mission. And so I said yes. And it has like tumbled forward into so many beautiful unforeseen gifts. One of them being making a song with Andrea’s unfinished poems and Brandi Carlile that is now featured in the film.”

While Bareilles’ involvement as a songwriter might have started out of necessity, she made it clear that she and fellow producer Carlile were eager for the chance to adapt Gibson’s unfinished work.

“The original conceit for the film was that the director Ryan White and Andrea had spoken about Andrea composing a new original poem just for the film. And when they got to the end of the film, it sort of felt to them like their poetry quotient was sort of met and the poem wasn’t finished. And so Andrea had just sort of like collected a couple of pages of couplets, a few stanzas. There was a lot, thematically, it was a lot about their love of Meg, their partner,” she said. “Brandi and I, both being on the executive producing team were like, ‘Put me in, coach.’ I would love to sit with those unfinished poetry, with that unfinished poetry and see if there’s a song to be made there. And so after the first time I watched the film, I was stunned. I don’t know how many of you have seen the film. I highly, highly, highly recommend it. And I had nothing to do with why the film is so beautiful. It’s just the magic of these people.”

Teaming up with another equally established songwriter, and working with lyrics written by someone else, was a new challenge for Bareilles. But the circumstances led to a unique creative process that was richer because all three women were involved.

“I have never collaborated quite in this way before, so I write lyrics. And so working from a page of some of the most beautiful and quirky and interesting perspectives… I just like to say, ‘Keep the Novocaine out of my wisdom teeth. I want to feel it all.’ I would never write that line myself, but as soon as I see it on the page, I’m like, ‘That’s fucking actually brilliant,'” she said. “And that’s one of the things I love about Andrea’s work and I bought all their books and highly recommend for the writers out there. There’s just a lot of inspiration to be taken, a lot of medicine from their work. And yeah, this collaboration was really unique and it was a really joyful one and I loved getting to celebrate our differences in making something together. That felt really beautiful.”

Bareilles didn’t shy away from the fact that “Come See Me in the Good Light” deals with dark subject matter, but Gibson made it clear that she never wanted her documentary to exclusively be a film about death. She wanted it to be a story about her love for her partner, Meg, and Bareilles was happy to oblige — even if it meant going back on her famous promise to never write a love song for someone who asked for one.

“The only direction that Andrea gave is that they didn’t want people to leave and hear a sad song,” she said. “They wanted something uplifting and they really wanted something that was about how much they loved Meg. So it felt like, great, we’re going to write a love song for Meg. That’s perfect. And I am aware of the, I’m not going to write you a love song. And yes, I did. I did write the love song. Pun very much intended.”

Watch IndieWire and Apple’s full conversation with Bareilles in the video above.

This event was presented in partnership with Apple.

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