On October 16, Disney+ released the movie “Clouds,” an inspiring film about teenage songwriter Zach Sobiech who rose to fame before passing away from osteosarcoma, a deadly bone cancer, in 2013. Before he passed away, Zach (played by Fin Argus) and his best friend and bandmate, Sammy Brown (played by Sabrina Carpenter) wrote several songs together as a way of saying goodbye once it was clear that Zach’s cancer was terminal. They formed a band called “A Firm Handshake” and recorded an album, “Fix Me Up.”

We asked the real Sammy Brown about the inspiration for a few of her and Zach’s songs: “Blueberries,” “Sandcastles,” “Fix Me Up,” “Clouds” and “How to Go to Confession,” all of which are featured in the movie “Clouds.” The stories behind each of them are below.

Read more about Sammy and Zach’s friends: Zach’s Sobiech’s friends and then-girlfriend talk “Clouds” movie

Blueberries

“Blueberries was the first one Zach and I ever wrote together. We were hanging out with a larger group of friends and did the whole let’s-start-a-band thing, AKA - spending an hour finding a song to cover and then maybe fiddling around with it for 30 minutes, which IS fun, but then you know, people have to go home for dinner and whatnot. But I stayed over at Zach’s after everyone left and we decided to write our own song. I remember my grandma saying something earlier that day like “Oh, the dandelions are going to seed” since summer was starting to slip away, and I liked that phrase so we started with that. From there, it snowballed into a song about time and endings through the different seasons, which was something that would come up again in our conversations and songwriting.” – Sammy Brown

Lyrics:
Dandelions have gone to seed, it's my soul I need to feed
The trees stand so tall and bare, and here I stand without a care
Pumpkin seeds stuck in my teeth, there's something more I need to be
More than just a silly girl, waiting for the sun to hurl

Rays of sunlight down the sidewalk, down on me
Casting light on the turning leaves and what I'm supposed to see

Winter's here and settled in, but where are you? 
I can't begin to imagine where I went wrong
Perhaps it was when I started this song

Rays of sunlight reflecting off the snowflakes
There are no more crinkly leaves I need to rake
But there's a chance, a chance I need to take

Birds and bees are here again, we haven't talked since God knows when
I like to dance in the sprouting grass
If it snows again, then I'll have to ask:

Why the hell are the seasons fickle, just like you? 
You ripped my heart in half, I'll stitch it up if it's certain we are through 

June bugs, butterflies, sand in my pants, midnight moon and those pesky little ants
You're here once more to try your luck
Well, I'm done with you, you sneaky little duck

Now it's over, there's nothing left for us to do
Besides acknowledging the repelling forces that are me and you

Read more: Behind the scenes of the Zach Sobiech movie, “Clouds”

Sandcastles

“The Sandcastles lyrics are all Zach, and he wrote them about Amy and the life they imagined together but would never have. He casually showed me this song he had scribbled down in his notebook one day and I just remember feeling so impressed by how perfectly he painted this wistful story about promises you can’t keep but make anyway to keep a dream alive. Together I helped him put it to a melody and created a duet with harmonies that echo this shared bittersweetness” – Sammy Brown

Lyrics:
If it's a rainy day, we can just drive away
But it's sunny outside so we might as well stay
Well, I'll collect some shells and you move the sand
We'll build our little sandcastle in a far-off land

Where no one gets hurt and no one dies
And your tears are scared of leaving your eyes
So grab a shovel and start digging deep
Cause our little sandcastle is all we can keep

In our little sandcastle we’ll have a swimming pool
A great big tower and maybe a chicken coop
We can run around playing tag in the yard
Oh, why does this place have to be so far?

Well the east wing is done and now for the west
We should build a few more rooms for our friends and guests
When we finally finish the north and south
I'll show you why I chose you and why you are mine

Cause your ears are like the shells I found
They listen to my soul

And your eyes reflect the water
And our little sandcastle seems real

I want to leave this world and go
To a place where

No one gets hurt and no one dies
And your tears are scared of leaving your eyes
So grab a shovel and start digging deep
Cause our little sandcastle is all we can keep

Our little sandcastle will probably never exist
But I like to dream and build our lives in it
And I'm sorry for never finishing our room
I didn't have enough time to make it as beautiful as you

When I lay my head to rest tonight
I'll be dreaming of our little sandcastle life
Where we'll never get hurt and never die
And our eyes will refuse to let us cry

No one gets hurt and no one dies
And your tears are scared of leaving your eyes
So grab a shovel and start digging deep
Cause our little sandcastle is all we can keep

Fix Me Up

“Zach and I didn’t talk about the heavy stuff often, but the night we wrote Fix Me Up was one of those nights. We were playing music in my room one night, and I wrote the sentence “Tell me something you’ve never told before” and it took off from there with us passing a notebook between us line by line (I still have it!). What I love about this song is how it reminds me of how uninhibited we felt when writing it - at the risk of sounding melodramatic, we weren’t self-conscious about it because we didn’t really have time to be. We wanted to make as many cool things together as we could, but this song was our moment of pause to acknowledge how sad we were that this would all end within a matter of months.  I don’t think it even became a conversation beyond the lyrics we wrote, we got it all down on the page and that felt productive.” – Sammy Brown

Lyrics:
Tell me something you never told before
Before I walk through the door, I adore you, I adore you
I do, I do

Smile with me and cry with me
I won't ever tell a soul
Hold my hand
I'll squeeze it back
And I'll never let go

Never give up, never look back
I won't give up I'll keep on trying
Dry your tears up, all your crying
Cannot fix me up my darling
Fix me up my darling

Twisty, turny winding path
I could listen to your laugh
As we tiptoe on these humble truths
I don't want to lose you

Show me how to love deeper than the surface, my friend
And you can show me what it means to have purpose
And I'll tell you again

Never give up, never look back
I won't give up I'll keep on trying
Dry your tears up, all your crying
Cannot fix me up my darling
Fix me up my darling

Woah Woah Woah... Hold on

Don't you lose hope the sky's not falling
Please just listen 'cause I'll be calling
Stay with me just one more moment
I know you're in pain just please don't show it

It's too late I'm afraid I have to leave
(One more moment please)

Promise me, promise me that you'll...
Never give up, never look back
I won't give up I'll keep on trying
Dry your tears up, all your crying
Cannot fix me up my darling
Fix me up my darling

Find music from Zach and Sammy’s band, “A Firm Handshake,” here.

Clouds

“Zach showing me great bops he had written like it was no big deal was kind of his MO in 2012. Obviously I couldn’t have imagined in a million years what that song would become, but in the moment I read it I felt the same thing that so many people feel when listening to it - a lot all at once.” – Sammy Brown

Lyrics:

I fell down, down, down
Into this dark and lonely hole
There was no one there to care about me anymore
And I needed a way to climb and grab a hold of the edge
You were sitting there holding a rope

And we'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
Go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now

When we get back on land
Well I'll never get my chance
Be ready to live and it'll be ripped right out of my hands
And maybe someday we'll take a little ride
Go up, up, up and everything will be just fine

And we'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
Go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear

It won't be long now, it won't be long now

If only I had a little bit more time
If only I had a little bit more time with you

We could go up, up, up
And take that little ride
We'll sit there holding hands
And everything would be just right

And maybe someday I'll see you again
We'll float up in the clouds and we'll never see the end

We'll go up, up, up
But I'll fly a little higher
Go up in the clouds because the view is a little nicer
Up here my dear
It won't be long now, it won't be long now

Help finish what Zach started by joining Zach’s Movement, a movement to fund the research that will end osteosarcoma.

How to Go to Confession

“I wrote "How to Go to Confession" at a winter church retreat. By that time, Zach was too sick to go, and I was really feeling his absence. It felt like a not-so-fun sneak preview of how life was going to be without him. At the retreat, the organizers gave us pamphlets titled “How to Go to Confession” and it was during a silent prayer sesh, when I was thinking about saying goodbye to Zach, that the words of the song started coming. After the retreat, I showed him the song and told him I didn’t know what to call it. He pointed to the top of the page, saying “It looks like it’s already titled for you.” Later, I put the lyrics to music with our friend Mitch Kluesner, who added a cello line. The first time we performed it was at our high school’s Coffee House, a show we’d usually do with Zach, but he was too sick to play. He died a few days later. In that way especially, it will always feel like a goodbye song.” – Sammy Brown

Lyrics:
Love me now and love me well, it's your love I crave to know
Before I stand here buried in this unforgiving snow

Love me good oh love me please, but I'm pleased to know you at all
Pull me out before I'm gone, and please don't let me fall

Fall asleep, but not for long, your dreams are in your hands
Handle them gracefully, but don't let them sift like sand

Sing of love and sing of none, but remember when you are through
I'll be here to sing along and my heart will be with you

Moments are fleeting
Each end is a greeting
To what lies ahead
So get up from your bed

Keep your eyes off the clock
Time's spent better with them locked in mine

Oh I tell you it's true
Every second is a treasure with you

Winds are mean and time is too; I can see them in my face
But winds have timely brought us close, like pearls sewn into lace

He has great plans in mind for us for welfare, not for woe
Plans to give us futures full of goodness, full of hope