Sara Bareilles says she “did finally write someone a love song” — find out who it was

Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile are executive producers on a new Apple TV documentary called Come See Me in the Good Light, and they’ve also teamed up to record a duet for the project.

The documentary, which is now streaming, is about the late Colorado Poet Laureate Andrea Gibson and wife Megan Falley, who faced Gibson’s incurable cancer diagnosis together. Gibson died in July of this year. While it sounds like an incredibly heavy topic, Sara tells Variety, “It’s so funny. You watch this film and Andrea is … hysterically funny, as is Meg. So you’re laughing a lot, and it’s just a joyful, life-affirming film that happens to be about cancer.”

Sara was also given the words of an unfinished poem by Gibson to use for a song for the end credits; she then tapped Brandi to turn it into a duet.”Salt Then Sour Then Sweet” is streaming now.

“Andrea didn’t want to leave people with some kind of broken-hearted, achy song. They wanted a love song for Meg, and so that’s what we wrote,” Sara tells Variety.

In a video on Instagram describing her involvement in the project, Sara refers to her breakthrough hit by joking, “I finally did write someone a love song — and it was Andrea Gibson.”

The song has already been nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award.

Meanwhile, Sara tells Variety that she has a new record coming out early next year, which is about “pretty much about grief.” “I’ve been going through a lot of loss these last few years,” she explains. However, she notes that grief “cracks you open in this way that I think is really important and helpful, ultimately, if you can sort of endure what’s hard about it.”