Long before I became Songbird Serenade, while I was still in high school, I encountered Discord turning Ponyville into the Chaos Capital of the world. I wasn't buying that his changes made ponies more fun, and I told him as much, which meant I had a part to play in the drama.

Fly Away!, the JPB Remix by NCS.

Looking for You by the Empire Cast

Ain't Nobody, a cover by Ain't Nobody, not the original by Chaka Khan

I'm Free by Kenny Loggins on the Footloose Soundtrack.

The following sequence from the long description of Certainty also sets the stage for this second story in the series:

Music Biz's Wicked Tongue: So,  Miss Serenade... World renown DJ, songwriter, records topping the charts, fans cry "Songbird" at you, Friendship Festival headliner...  What's the scoop with the serialized stories The Strand is launching?  Self-aggrandizing fiction?

Songbird Serenade: Self-aggrandizing? (She shuffles some pages on the table before her and takes a deep breath.)  On the evening of the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, a blank-flank teenager was expecting to scrub and dust, helping her immigrant parents clean Town Hall overnight. She was... okay with that. Her family was glad for any opportunity. Her Trottingham accent worried her—

WT: Your accent—

SS:  Might her classmates discover she was a peasant who cleaned up after other ponies and always would?  She jammed with a nascent DJ named Vinyl Scratch, but, with her sorry excuse for being a DJ next to her only friend, she had no dreams of a musical future.

(Her blue eyes catch mine for an instant.)  Little did I know at the dawn of the Age of Harmony, I would meet its first monster.

The filly made it to her next sunrise, but would be piecing herself together for the rest of her life. Ultimately, without Princess Nightmare Moon there would be no Songbird Serenade. This is one of those stories.

WT: Are you saying the stories are autobiographical?

SS: (She covers her face with her mop of bangs after I see incipient tears.)  It's a confession.  She dislikes the filly she was.  As for the mare she became... (Shudders)