Christina Perri’s name is synonymous with the iconic love song A Thousand Years. The hit, originally written for the Twilight movie series, turned the singer-songwriter into a multi-platinum artist. Fans of the films started playing A Thousand Years as their wedding song, making it one of the most popular first dance and aisle walk songs since its release in 2011. Fourteen years later, Viking Books turned the beautiful lyrics into a children’s book with Christina, a mom of two herself, as the author.
We spoke to Christina about her debut as an author, her family life in California, her at times incredibly challenging journey into motherhood, and more.
Can you please tell us a bit about your family?
I live in LA with my husband Paul Costabile and we have two daughters, Carmella, 7, and Pixie, 2.5. We’re Italian, we like making pizza, and are obsessed with Wicked!
Love that! Please tell me about your new book—how did it come about?
It honesty happened very organically. I was on tour for like seven years, living my best life as a recording artist and playing this song every night. People were getting married to it. It was the Twilight song and then it was the wedding song.
I thought that was the whole life of the song, and then all of those people who got married started growing their families and singing the song to their kids. I made a lullaby version; I have a lullaby album for all of my daughters. The book was the natural next step, since I’m reading picture books to my daughters every night. We connected with Penguin and over the last four years it’s come to life!
So wonderful! Did you always know this song would resonate with people?
I really did write the song for fans of the Twilight books—I wrote it for Edward and Bella. I was careful when I crafted it, to truly honor their story. I wrote it for the wedding scene and they ended up putting it in the credits which was fine, but as a songwriter, I loved that people started using it as a wedding song—they got it.
Marriage and motherhood is such a big deal. Your wedding day is such a big deal. The fact that this is the soundtrack to those moments is such a blessing. And now it’s so cool to be part of a parent reading to a child at bedtime, because I’m a parent and know how sweet that time every night is.
You’ve had an at times incredibly challenging motherhood journey, including experiencing both miscarriage and stillbirth. Why did you decide to share these stories, including making your album, Songs for Rosie?
It feels almost impossible for me not to share it. I had a miscarriage in January of 2020—that felt more common. The conversation around miscarriage is better than it used to be. I wanted to get pregnant again quickly, and I was 8.5 months pregnant when Rosie died. She was already a big part of our story–my motherhood, our family, our marriage. I met her and held her. I knew I would still make her lullaby album. Pixie is my double rainbow baby. These are sad things that people go through, but if we don’t talk about it doesn’t make people feel less alone. The more I talked about it, the more people came out and said me too, me too.
Women who have experienced pregnancy loss are such an amazing, loving community and they carried me through getting pregnant with Pixie and believing it would be okay. I dedicated this book to Carmella, Pixie and Rosie—she’s such an important part of my story.
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