Susanna Hoffs with a Musical and New Song on the Way

 How beautiful—and deeply satisfying—it is to realize I wasn’t wrong back in 2019, when in one section of my post “Susanna Hoffs, the ‘Eternal Punk Girl’ with a Sublime Essence (The Hoffs Effect)”, I described her as a box of surprises.

“Definitely, if instead of writing I had ventured into illustrating Susanna Hoffs, the result would have been a box of surprises,” I noted in that article, as the opening line of the section What Else Does Susanna Hoffs Do?

And just a few days ago, I came across on YouTube the interview that my fellow journalist Alisyn Camerota conducted with Susanna Hoffs as part of VersoFest 2026.

In that Q&A session—shaped as an intimate, elegant, and artistically sensitive conversation—Hoffs went far beyond revisiting her legacy with The Bangles or covering expected topics. Instead, the dialogue became a window into her evolution as a singer-songwriter, storyteller, and multidisciplinary creator.

And yes—regarding that last point—Susanna Hoffs revealed to Alisyn Camerota that she is currently working on adapting her novel This Bird Has Flown into a musical.

Susanna Hoffs and Alisyn Camerota during VersoFest 2026 interview

“I'm working on the musical adaptation of This Bird Has Flown,” Hoffs said in response to Camerota’s question, “What are you working on next?”

In this way, Susanna Hoffs brilliantly used the magic of spoken word to trace a journey that moved from meaningful memories into a present—and a future—rich with ideas and new ways of storytelling.

This Bird Has Flown: To the Stage or the Big Screen?

What was not made clear in Hoffs’ revelation to Camerota (or at least not to me) is whether the adaptation of her novel, originally published on April 4, 2023, is intended as a stage musical or a film musical.

That’s when I turned to the internet in search of more information on the topic, but there is still nothing available.

Thus, the impulse to write this article not only took me back to my days as a field journalist, covering assignments and reading between the lines that often went unnoticed by my colleagues, but also—and immediately—this question made me rewind to May 2021, when I published “New music from Susanna Hoffs will say hello very soon”, driven by a scoop the artist herself shared on her Instagram account.

That day, I remember I didn’t even think twice. I even admit I felt like it was an exclusive, because—on top of being absolutely sure that no one would give that announcement the value it deserved—I already had enough material to at least build a short news piece with a teaser-campaign vibe.

“I’m just saying hi and letting you know there will be new music—only onto webs—very soon,” Hoffs said, without specifying a date. Still, everything suggests that in just a few days—or perhaps less than a couple of weeks—her new songs—and surely some covers as well—will be in full #NowPlaying mode.

The also founding member of The Bangles and voice of Eternal Flame did not clarify either whether this refers to her new solo album (which would be her fourth, by the way) or to what she herself described as a “lost treasure from 1999” (another Hoffs album that has not yet seen the light of day).

She spoke briefly about both albums in an interview (in November of last year), which I share with you below:

From the article: New music from Susanna Hoffs will say hello very soon (May 4, 2021)

And well, whether Susanna Hoffs brings her “bird that has flown” to the stage or to the big screen, what truly matters here is that the adaptation of This Bird Has Flown shines as brightly as—or even more than—The Phantom of the Opera, Les Misérables, Hamilton, Chicago, Moulin Rouge!, Singin’ in the Rain, The Wizard of Oz, Grease, or Mamma Mia!, among others.

I know that may sound quite ambitious, but this is another of Susanna’s projects that—despite the lingering mystery—has filled me with excitement.

Susanna Hoffs with her book This Bird Has Flown in hand

That said, Hoffs had already added another layer to her revelation to Camerota—namely, that she is not doing this alone.

“CJ, who was playing piano before, and Edie Brickell and me are working on a musical adaptation of This Bird Has Flown (...) We’ve been writing songs for a musical of the book,” Susanna Hoffs stated.

CJ at the piano during one of Susanna Hoffs’ performances at the event

"The list" of Susanna Hoffs revealed in a song

During the conversation with Camerota, Hoffs also opened the curtain further to reveal that she is working with CJ on a song titled None of Them Were You, which will be released very soon and is inspired by a list of names.

Given the context in which this revelation emerged (referring to the rumored relationship between Hoffs and actor Michael J. Fox) and what Susanna Hoffs shared about this musical project—its inspiration and the way she referred to her creative collaborator—I was reminded not only of Alanis Morissette’s song Unsent, but also of the micro-version of that concept I once attempted myself and dedicated to Hoffs last year.

Regarding the first reference, Morissette’s song (included on her album Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie) is presented as a list of men who were significant in her emotional and/or personal life. And, from what Susanna hinted, her own “list” seems to follow a similar path.

“I dated other people (...) I wrote a song that’s called The List,” Hoffs revealed, referring to a handwritten list of names with brief notes beside each one, indicating that something had happened in each case.

Although it was not shown on screen, Susanna Hoffs referred to this photograph with Michael J. Fox during her conversation with Camerota. She also made it clear that there was never any romantic relationship with the actor.

Regarding other hints about this new Susanna Hoffs song, the singer-songwriter explained that the most beautiful thing about “the list” is that the very last name mentioned in it is that of the man she eventually married (film director Jay Roach).

Now, in connection with the fact that Hoffs’ announcement brought back to my memory the micro-version of Unsent that I dedicated to the artist, it was when she described CJ as “someone I work with all the time.”

With that “someone” (and everything surrounding it) framed within the essence of all of this, it was impossible not to hear and see myself in it.

Dear Susanna, I admire you a lot
Surely, you’re busy and making things with someone right now

Excerpt from the micro version of Unsent dedicated to Susanna Hoffs.

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Susanna Hoffs and Alanis Morissette: From Musical Legacies to Storytelling in Other Creative Spaces

Although this article is centered on Susanna Hoffs, it has been truly wonderful to once again mention her alongside Alanis Morissette in the same space. Even more so because it is not only due to Unsent, but also because of the musical theatre connection—now my two favorite musical women are almost on equal footing.

I tell you.

In 2019, one of the first pieces I ever wrote for this blog was about the Broadway pre-sale of the musical Jagged Little Pill, inspired by Alanis Morissette’s music and named after her iconic and highly successful 1995 album.

“Are you a fan of Alanis Morissette? What you need to know about the Jagged Little Pill Broadway musical pre-sale,” was the title of that article. And while I was writing it, I remember feeling incredibly excited, because it was a production based on my favorite singer, and it would actually be taking the stage.

While it is true that Jagged Little Pill was not Alanis Morissette’s first studio album (although I always thought it was), it was the one that propelled her to international fame, and it was also the collection of songs that first hooked me on her music, together with my best friend and life-sister Jenny Lobo.

As if that weren’t enough, Morissette already has a valuable presence in the literary world—not only through the novelized adaptation of the aforementioned musical, created alongside other co-authors, but also through collaborations and written forewords.

And in the case of Susanna Hoffs, beyond the extraordinary work she has done (and continues to do) in music, she is now adapting her first book (also a novel) into a musical, so that—at least as I understand it—the story of Jane Start (the protagonist of This Bird Has Flown) is not only told, but also sung and performed on stage.

Alanis did it the other way around, yes—from musical to novel—but the value remains the same. It is like the commutative property in mathematics: the order of the factors does not change the product.

Truly, I am proud of both of them. And it would be wonderful if one day they could share the same stage, just as I once imagined might happen at the BeachLife Festival, when I saw their names listed together on the lineup of the event held on May 4, 2025, in Redondo Beach, California. 

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Susanna Hoffs: A Conversation, Memories, and the Origin of This Post

Since 2022 (and even part of 2021), I have missed many things about Susanna Hoffs. And it is not only that I missed them, but also that I lost the opportunity to feel that excitement in real time and to share a post about them.

A couple of examples include both the release of a version of Eternal Flame on April 1, 2025—which I only found out about several weeks later—and the release of her album The Lost Record, which happened in October 2024. I only learned about it—if my memory is not playing tricks on me—during the early months of 2025, and I suspect it is the same album Hoffs referred to back in November 2020 as “the lost treasure.”

How many other things have I missed and still don’t even know about?

But this time, as I have also begun to give this blog more attention and care, it was impossible to overlook the pair of gems Hoffs revealed in her conversation with Camerota. A conversation that, by the way, took place at Verso Studios inside The Westport Library, in Westport, Connecticut, on March 6.

I confess that beyond seeing this information as a basis for writing and publishing a news piece, the whole situation came across as a powerful push shaped by mysterious “I don’t know whats” and “I don’t know whys.”

And it is that the interview’s thumbnail (published on The Westport Library’s YouTube channel) appeared in front of me while scrolling through the sea of videos as I opened YouTube. That was where the magic began; and then, inspiration fulfilled its highest purpose. For all of it, I am grateful.

Related posts

Before you go, and beyond thanking you for reading this post, I invite you to explore the articles mentioned throughout this piece:

• Susanna Hoffs, the ‘Eternal Punk Girl’ with a Sublime Essence (Hoffs Effect)
• New music from Susanna Hoffs will say hello very soon
• Are you a fan of Alanis Morissette? What you need to know about the “Jagged Little Pill” Broadway musical pre-sale

And if you still haven’t watched Alisyn Camerota’s interview with Susanna Hoffs at Verso Studios (The Westport Library), I’m sharing it with you below: 

This post was first written in Spanish by Arleth Vitanza, posted by her on April 19, 2026 and translated into English by AI for you to enjoy.