Melissa Ferrick is an American singer-songwriter born in 1970 and raised in Ipswich, Massachusetts. Her father was a public school teacher who managed several free-jazz bands on the side. As a child, Ferrick would often accompany her father to clubs on Boston's North Shore to watch the bands play . She began taking classical violin lessons at the age of 5, and then moved on to the piano. In elementary and junior high school, she learned the trumpet and bass. Altogether, she received twelve years of formal music training, including two years each at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music. Ferrick taught herself to play the acoustic guitar at Berklee, and dropped out after two years to pursue her music career.

Singer/songwriter Melissa Ferrick emerged in 1994 as part of a group of new female alternative singer/songwriters, much in the vein of Liz Phair. Ferrick began singing in coffeehouses after dropping out of college, eventually winding up in Boston. Her major breakthrough arrived one night when she replaced Morrissey’s opening act less than an hour before showtime. Ferrick’s performance impressed Morrissey and he invited her to open for him during the rest of the tour. The tour earned her a sm