A Syracuse mural’s message became foundation for album track ‘Light Bill’
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After performing again at Funk ’n Waffles with Seeing Double in 2022, musician Allie Sandt got into a car to head home. While sitting in the back with her bandmates, a mural with a message painted across a railroad bridge on West Fayette Street caught her eye: “I paid the light bill just to see your face.”
Little did she know, the mural would inspire a song on her debut solo album.
“It was a great night, and I looked up and I just made a mental note of it at the time. It was something that I knew was going to stick with me,” Sandt said.
Sandt, 24, is a New Jersey-based singer-songwriter who previously played bass and sang lead vocals for Seeing Double while attending SUNY Oneonta. On July 17, Sandt released her seven-track debut album, “In Pursuit of a Good Time,” which blends indie, folk, rock and country influences. Two of its songs draw inspiration from central New York: “Light Bill” from the Syracuse mural and “Amanda Antiques” from a conversation Sandt had with Cazenovia antique store owner Amanda Bury.
“Light Bill,” is directly inspired by Sandt’s brief glimpse with a downtown Syracuse mural on West Fayette Street. Written and performed in fall 2023, the track took nearly three years for its official release and talks about Sandt longing for another person’s presence.
The phrase that caught Sandt’s attention is part of artist Steve Powers’ “A Love Letter to Syracuse” project, a collection of text-based murals painted across railroad bridges near West Fayette Street.
Powers created the murals in 2010 through a collaboration with the Near Westside Initiative and Syracuse University. Before painting the bridges, Powers and his crew attended community meetings and spoke with Near Westside residents about their lives in the city. The project used public art to reinvest in historically marginalized neighborhoods.
Those conversations inspired messages about relationships, paying bills and living through central New York’s seasons on the series of murals. They also include phrases like “nothing to do is everything with you” and “Spring comes. Summer waits. Fall leaves. Winter longs.”
Thirteen years later, one of those messages became the foundation for Sandt’s song, which currently has over 8,000 Spotify plays. Unlike most of her other songs, “Light Bill” began with Powers’ words rather than a melody, she said.
“I only paid the light bill to see your face / Cause night will stretch like shadows from the clouds / On the hills that you point out, “ Sandt sings in “Light Bill.”
“I usually start with a melody and not lyrics, almost every time without fail,” Sandt said. “But it is just unique in that I started with just singing that line, and the rest of the connective narrative kind of came with it.”
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Sandt held onto “Light Bill” until she had the time and resources to record her debut album, she said. The track was one of the album’s earliest-written songs.
After the album’s release, Sandt shared videos on Instagram explaining the song’s inspiration. Syracuse residents responded that they recognized the mural and regularly passed beneath it during their commutes.
Brian Pham, an SU senior who commutes from Clay, New York, has passed the mural countless times without knowing it inspired a released song. Learning through social media about the connection between his commute and Sandt’s song gave a familiar part of his journey new meaning and showed how his surroundings can take shape.
“It is super cool how this subconscious thing can come to light, especially on my feed,” Pham said. “I never looked up at it before, but now I know something else about it.”
The connection to driving also reflects how Sandt views “In Pursuit of a Good Time.” She described the album as lighthearted “road trip music,” saying many of its melodies and ideas came to her while she was in the car.
Sandt’s affectionate interpretation of the mural adds a new chapter to the art piece that didn’t receive universal support when it was installed. Karen Reed, a longtime Syracuse resident, recalled that some community members felt the mural’s unusual phrases could give people entering Syracuse a strange first impression of the city.
“I remember when a lot of these murals went up, and in particular the one about the light bill,” Reed said. “It felt like an interesting choice at the time to put those words in one of the poorest areas of the city.”
After years of seeing the mural while diving down West Fayette Street, Reed said hearing “Light Bill” with her nephew revived a conversation surrounding the mural when it was installed. The song was deep, meaningful and was a fitting tribute to the decade-old painting, Reed said.
Syracuse has a long history of public murals, Reed said. But as new pieces appeared across the city, she feels like residents don’t always listen to how community input shaped them or learn the stories behind their creation.
With “Light Bill,” Sandt not only added a personal spin on a piece that impacted her, but she brought the mural back in conversation within the Syracuse community.
“People who do know this song will drive under it and maybe hum it to themselves,” Sandt said. “I think it’s just a sweet message, and the mural on the bridge was here first.”
