Rita Wilson reflects on being a songwriting late-bloomer and getting some advice from Bruce Springsteen. In 13 years of songwriting this album feels the most personal to me. I’ve come to a stage in my life where I feel comfortable opening up more, allowing myself to use my voice, both metaphorically and literally. Many times I’ve felt muted—and a lot of people do. It’s not necessarily feeling silenced by the world itself, although that can be part of it, but by my own sense of propriety as a very private person in a very public life and profession. This album is called Sound of a Woman because it’s exploring what it is that women experience. We carry so many identities and labels with us from the minute we come into the world. Shedding the ones we don’t need, keeping the ones that feel true, is a lifelong process. I couldn’t have written this album years ago. It took time to allow what needed to be said to emerge. I also didn’t yet have the courage. There were too many limitations about what someone in their fifties could or should be doing. And some of those limitations were in my own head. But, about 12 years ago, a conversation with one of the greatest songwriters ever, Bruce Springsteen, changed everything. I asked Bruce what made me think I could start songwriting at this point in my life when he’d been writing all of his. His answer stopped me in my tracks. He said, “Because, Reets, creativity is time-independent.” What a concept. There is no clock on creativity. If anything, time has been the greatest gift.