At Talent Is Timeless, we run Monthly Songwriting Challenges to help keep our members writing, sharing, and connecting. Each month, we spotlight some of the incredible songwriters who placed in these challenges — inviting them to share a bit more about their lives, their creative journeys, and the stories behind their songs.

This month, we’re featuring 54-year-old songwriter Nyx Nightmaker from Melbourne, Australia, who joined Talent Is Timeless in August 2025 and is part of the Melbourne Song Circle. Nyx’s latest song, Buy Me a Drink and Kill the Lies, is a fierce, deeply personal track about surviving in a world that often misunderstands difference.

“The lyrics are about the pressure to perform without being seen as a freakshow when the world seems mostly glued to their phones and brainwashed by a modern age where fascism and intolerance fight against empathy and truth,” Nyx explains.

The song grapples with the numbness that comes from trying to cope — through alcohol, through silence, through the exhaustion of having to justify your own existence. Nyx writes from lived experience as an intersex person, someone whose very biology has often been questioned or erased.

“I’ve lived a life where my biology and other intersex people’s has often been called into question as even existing,” they say. “As a child I was told to never tell anyone what I was. You can’t just ‘get over’ something like that when even your own body, hormones, and mind reinforce a notion that something about you is wrong.”

In writing Buy Me a Drink and Kill the Lies, Nyx turned pain into protest — and truth into art. Music has been part of Nyx’s world since childhood. They began writing songs as a young person fascinated by language, double meanings, and social observation. An early obsession with The Beatles’ evolution into psychedelia shaped their artistic curiosity, later deepened by the darker emotional worlds of Joy Division and R.E.M.

“As a late teen I formed a band as the songwriter and singer,” they recall. “Over the years I learned production and editing techniques along the way.”

But the path wasn’t smooth. In their twenties, while struggling with depression, Nyx broke up the band and stopped writing altogether.

“The last few songs I wrote dragged up emotions I could not deal with at the time and mentally snapped. Then came the great silence. It was like my lake of creativity had completely dried up.”

Everything changed in 2024. After losing their job, home, partner, and friends, Nyx describes reaching a breaking point that became a breakthrough.

“I felt a new hope, like I had nothing left to lose,” they say. “And then, like a floodgate bursting, my brain filled with music again.”

Songs poured out, and Nyx began recording using Ableton and Dubler software, eventually releasing their debut CD and connecting with listeners across the world.

“Even though I’m far from the next big thing, just getting messages from a few of my listeners on the other side of the world has been uplifting. I know my songs — my brain babies — have returned for a reason.”

The Melbourne Song Circle within Talent Is Timeless has been a powerful new source of encouragement.

“The community has been wonderful,” Nyx says. “Sharing our songs and getting supportive feedback and interactions with other creatives is more valuable and precious to me than I ever thought possible.”

One of the most remarkable aspects of Nyx’s journey is their unique physiology: they were born as a chimera intersex person — the result of having merged with their brother in the womb.

“I have a unique combined internal body, including a dual larynx in my throat — a double voice box,” Nyx explains. “With effort and training, I’m able to sing both through my female or male sides. I use this ability to sing two-part songs when I don’t have a co-singer.”

It’s a striking transformation of what was once seen as a disadvantage into a literal dual-voiced strength — a way to embody the full complexity of their story through sound. Nyx’s advice to other songwriters over 50 is equal parts honest and hopeful:

“You’ve already lived a life and have a bigger perspective than when you were young. If you have the spark to write and sing about it, it’s never too late — until you draw your final breath.”

Their music and story stand as a testament to resilience, truth, and the defiant beauty of finding — and using — one’s voice in a world that too often asks people to stay silent.

You can listen to Nyx’s winning song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_96SEN2mS70

And Connect with Nyx on Talent Is Timeless here: https://www.talentistimeless.com/members/nyxnightmaker/