If someone had told me I’d end up in Sweden writing songs, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have believed them.
I was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. We are 5 siblings in my family and we’ve all played an instrument or two. I grew up with a father that played clarinet, my mother trombone! I remember my paternal grandmother loved to play the piano. A lot of Polkas! (To my horror as a teen)
Now I look back with affection.

My love of music has just always been a part of me, more than I understood while I was growing up. When you’re a kid, you just take things naturally without analyzing everything to death. Thank God.
I took lessons to play the “Church Organ” because we received a gift from my maternal grandmother. (The actual instrument)
It was then I started to feel like a real oddball…I mean, how many KIDS could play the Organ? Somehow, my timed practice sessions always changed from practicing scales and chords and pedal notes, to Olivia Newton John, Karen Carpenter, Barry Manilow and so on. Definitely more piano type songs.

Sitting by myself jammin’ on the organ to ONJ’s “Let me be there” …wow… I really chuckle now when I think back on that time. As I became more aware… I almost died of embarrassment from being the GEEK who played the organ- so I changed to flute. Far more COOL. ? My career in Marching Band was set. Haha! I worked hard to stay first chair- and learned a lot from those years, but something inside always thought there was something boring with the NOTES. I think it was about that time when I started changing lyrics to songs that I heard on the radio. I had my own little version of songs-and I always read and pondered the lyrics that came along with the vinyl LP. (Yes, I said vinyl LP)

In my naïve way, I just assumed that everyone listened to music the way I did (ah, the innocence of youth…) And it wasn’t until some years ago when I was reminiscing with one of my sisters about our childhood, that it started to dawn on me that I really LISTENED to music from an early age. She said- “Jackie, I remember you would be downstairs with headphones on and you would say ‘Come here! Come here! You gotta hear this!” and then you would put the headphones on me and I would listen and say, ‘yea- that’s a nice song’ but I couldn’t really understand what you were so excited about” Haha! I was so excited about “this part- that part”…. The little details that made up the whole picture. Even back then I was dissecting songs! Another thing I didn’t understand was not everyone heard harmonies- I thought it was that way in everyone’s ears! One of my other sisters made me aware that she had to write the chords out to figure out what I could hear in my head. I thank my Father for that talent.

I am thankful for growing up with the American radio stations- it was an informal education all in itself- having access to so many genres of music at the touch of a button my whole childhood. I listened and listened and listened.
It’s pretty amazing how our brains work- to hear a song 20 years later and still remember the words, harmonies, solos, guitar licks....
Music is powerful. A language all it’s own. The cool thing is – we don’t need to understand the language to be affected. We FEEL something. Everyone has his or her own story associated with music. Two people can listen to the same song and hear 2 different things and of course, have completely different memories associated with the song. How cool is that.

Moving to Sweden happened after a year on the road performing a 2-hour show around the world with an international cast of 120 members from 22 countries. It was an education that I could have NEVER gotten out of a book.

It has been a long journey to meet the people I now work with professionally. But if I really ask myself when it all started, I remember that I started writing my own things later on in my teens..…in high school actually. I was doing more singing too. I think the best compliment I ever got back then was when someone told me I sounded just like Amy Grant. As a 17 year old- that made me very happy! (It was all about “sounding like someone else” who was already more cool than I was!) Ha-ha… The thought of being ORIGINAL was still a few maturity years away.
It never dawned on me that I would be so lucky to get an opportunity to put my words to music- or have music put to my words professionally some day.

When I first started writing it was more “deep and serious” lyrics, a bit autobiographical. But it didn’t take long before I started writing more “fictional”… when I wrote a lyric and shared it with someone; it was fascinating to observe their reaction. Sometimes, what I originally wrote about was not at all what the person reading my words interpreted it to be about. I thought that was so cool. And it triggered my imagination.

Another thing is culture. Writing in another culture has been a very interesting “school” for me. I get to use my mother tongue, but there is a different sense of what the ears are listening for over in Sweden and Europe. At home in the States, we pay attention to the lyrics in a different way.  A good Swedish pop song (as I call them) has a good lyric that “sounds” and sings good- but it doesn’t always have to be the reinvention of the wheel. It’s truly a challenge to try and express the human conditions that have already been expressed in about every way imaginable. But that is part of the fun of it –trying to express things that might touch people, and it’s an honor and a privilege!

Lyrics and Music have been analyzed more and more through out the years. MANY Books have been written about it. In some ways, it’s a mystery (gift, talent) and in some ways, it’s a calculated craft. Over the years I have grown to understand more of the craft of writing, but I honestly still believe in the mystery that is a big part of it for me. I do believe that I can listen to someone’s melody and the song will tell me what it’s going to be about. It’s happened to me too many times to deny it. Each song is a gift, and I feel like a vessel that it flows through on it's way to reaching its goal. 

But! I have learned that it eventually becomes necessary to combine the talent and craft.
It requires time and discipline to puzzle lyrics together with music. To produce an outcome that can more or less stand alone without the music and still have some logic to it. I’m not a singer/songwriter that can jumble up my life in a bunch of incomprehensible cool lines…. I like to at least make some sense.
This webpage shows some of the fruits of my work so far- the start of what I hope will continue to develop.

I hope you enjoy what you hear.
Enjoy the journey!
Jackie

Nashville, TN, USA
International Songwriting Competition (ISC) Announces Country Music Winners
April 29, 2009 – – The International Songwriting Competition (ISC) is pleased to announce its winners, including the winners in the Country music category. Renowned for its prestigious celebrity judges, ISC received over 15,500 songs from professional songwriters from 100 countries worldwide, confirming ISC's status as the leading global songwriting event.
The Country category is always one of the most highly-anticipated and exciting genres in ISC and this year was judged, among others, by country luminaries Loretta Lynn, Craig Morgan, and one of the most respected executives in the music industry: Renee Bell, Executive VP A&R, Sony BMG Nashville.
Candace Avery, Founder and Director of ISC, says, “As always, the entries in the Country category this year represented a wide array of styles, from traditional to contemporary, and is a direct result of Country artists exploring all aspects of the genre. It is such a privilege to be able to hear so many amazing songs every year from so many talented songwriters.”
Winning First Place in the Country Music category are Jackie Kavan from Stockholm, Sweden, along with co-writers Mike Willis and David G. Smith from Nashville, TN, USA, for their song “Made For You.”
Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, Kavan has been busy staking out a name for herself writing with some of the Sweden’s most internationally established and successful songwriters, producers and artists. Cuts include a song on an album that went Gold in Germany with the artist Peter Maffay, and most recently, the Swedish pop group Alcazar. Nashville has made its way into her career the last couple of years, and one of the fruits from that is “Made for You.
Willis was recently honored by The ASCAP Foundation as Nashville's Best Up and Coming Singer Songwriter. He began his journey as a touring performer playing shows throughout the country, and sharing the stage with acts from John Mayer to Sugarland to Shawn Mullins. In 2007 Willis planted his roots in Nashville. He currently writes for Big Tractor Music and is working on his fourth independent release. Native Iowan David G. Smith writes in several music styles almost exclusively with other well-known Nashville artists/writers, and is a Lifetime Member of the Nashville Songwriters Association, International and the Songwriters Guild of America.

Applauded for its high caliber of judges, ISC compiled a stellar panel of judges for the 2008 competition, including: Loretta Lynn; Craig Morgan; Chris Hillman (The Byrds); Rob Thomas (Matchbox 20); Chaka Khan; Tom Waits; KT Tunstall; Robert Smith (The Cure); Ricky Martin; Neil Finn (Crowded House); Buckcherry; T-Pain; James Cotton; Jerry Lee Lewis; Ray Davies (The Kinks); McCoy Tyner; Darryl McDaniels (Run DMC); Michael W. Smith; John Scofield; Mario; Black Francis (The Pixies);

Youssou N'Dour; John Mayall; DJ Tiesto; Paul Van Dyk; Jon Secada; Natalie Grant; Jeremy Camp; Matt Thiessen (Relient K); Pittbull; Angelique Kidjo; "Weird Al" Yankovic; Sandra Bernhard; David Brenner; Monte Lipman (President, Universal Records); Nick Burgess (Head of A&R, Virgin Records UK); Angel Carrasco (Sr. VP of A&R, Latin America Sony BMG and President, Discos 605); Cameron Strang (President, New West Records); John Echevarria (President, Universal Music Latino); Rick Krim (Executive VP Talent and Programming, VH1); Amy Doyle (Sr. VP of Music and Talent, MTV); Kim Buie (VP of A&R, Lost Highway); Jon Pikus (Director of A&R, MySpace Records); Mitchell Cohen (VP of A&R, Verve Music Group); Bruce Iglauer (Founder/President, Alligator Records); Dan Storper (President, Putumayo World Music); Rene Bell (Executive VP A&R, Sony BMG Nashville); Peter Strickland (Senior VP, Jack Records/Warner Bros.); Steve Lillywhite (Producer - credits include U2, The Rolling Stones, Morrissey, Peter Gabriel, and more); Douglas C. Cohn (Sr. VP, Music Marketing & Talent, Nickelodeon); Cory Robbins (Founder/President, Robbins Entertainment); Betty Pino (DJ, WAMR Miami); Paul Majors (CEO/Founder Majors Music); Leib Ostrow (CEO, Music for Little People); and Dr. Demento (Radio Host of The Dr. Demento Show)
Sponsors included: Luna Guitars, Berklee College Of Music, Shure, D'Addario, M-Audio, Griffin Technology, Hear Technologies, Po Boy Drums, Thayers, Disc Makers, ASCAP, Phase One Studios, Stuph Merch, Sonicbids, Sam Ash, Alphabet Arm Design, Shari's Berries, Taxi, George Stein, Esq., The Music Business Registry, SongU.com, Sibelius, and Onlinegigs.