How can I keep from singing?

Well today something very exciting happened! I was able to set up the official facebook page for a little something that given me so much strength over the past 10 months. I have an album coming out! Or rather, we have an album coming out! Go check it out, no, read this then go check it out! www.facebook.com/unexpectedsongbird

I want to take you on the journey that through the last four years had brought me to this moment.

A few months after we relocated to Dorset in 2009 I plucked up the courage to sing a beautiful song written by the incredibly talented Steve Richie (who use to be a member of my favourite folk band Tanglefoot before they disbanded) in church. The song holds a very special place in my heart because it was the song that finished playing just moments before Amelia-Rose was born.  In my opinion it is one of the most beautiful songs ever written and I would urge you all to find a way to listen to it. I am sure it is available in other places also but I know it is on spotify. The song is called 'For the day'.

No one in the parish knew I could sing and it was the first time for 7 years I had sung in public. Singing has always been a passion of mine but I use to suffer with the most awful stage fright and whilst I didn't 'choke' on stage in the days leading up to a concert I would feel sick!

Our church music group had a fabulous sax player called Dan (who has since gone on to be a really valued person in my life. Amelia-Rose calls him 'Granddad Dan') and he asked me if I had ever sung Jazz, I told him I hadn't but I had always wanted to give it and a go and before I knew it I was in his front room looking through song books and refusing to sing into the microphone because there were builders outside working on his house!

Through hours of patience and practise Dan got me singing into the mic and before long we had our first gig!

At first Dan and I would use backing tracks but we were given the phone number of a piano player and went along to meet him with the hope that we might be able to preform together. Dan and I had been asked along to participate in the open mic session at our local Jazz café and we had no desire to turn up there with our backing tracks!

Around the same time we also met a guitar player called Adrian so we no longer needed the backing tracks! Whilst Steve, Dan, Adrian and I never preformed together Dan and I would switch between Steve and Adrian depending upon who was available when we had a gig.

Dan and I eventually went our own ways when he put together a new band and I was keen to try new things. We are still firm friends to this day and I fully accredit me finding my way back to singing to him! Not many people would have put up with my silly nerves in those early days!

Steve was looking at putting together a new much smaller group and was interested in trying different material. Right before my hips started to get bad Michael, a fantastic trumpet player joined Steve and I and we began rehearsing and looking for our audience.

When my hips got bad I wasn't well enough to commit to gigs let alone preform and that could have been the end of the story but really it is just the beginning.

Steve and I got together in January 2013 with the intention of talking about trying to write some new material. I took a very deep breath and showed him some lyrics I had written using a direct quote from something Tony had said to me one night when he was consoling me. An hour later we had a song! We were both blown away by the ease in which our creative energy seemed to mix and we were excited enough to commit to trying another song.

Steve emailed me a piece of music he had put together and asked if I had any ideas for lyrics that might work. He gave me one phrase and left the rest to me. I won't lie, it felt like an enormous responsibility. I have Steve on a bit of a pedestal and the idea that he was trusting me with a piece of his music was mind blowing!

Steve has been a professional musician his entire adult life and worked with some very successful bands. He knows the business and has played to packed out arenas. It isn't just his success though that makes me admire him so much. He is, in my opinion, genuinely one of the wisest people you will ever meet and he has this amazing ability to draw out your own inner wisdom without you even trying.

The following week we were back in the studio and it was time to take another deep breath and sing what I had written.  You can imagine my internal terror when a verse and chorus in he stopped me... "That's it" he said " Lets record it!" *PHEW*

The rest as they say is history. Steve and I have spent many many hours together writing and recording and talking late into the night and not writing or recording at all!

It is a very unexpected creative relationship and friendship (not least because of the 38 year age gap) but a very real one. Steve and I seem to draw out each other's creative process and compliment each others personalities. I couldn't tell you what 'it' is but we have 'it'. There is never any frustration or clash of ideas, sometimes I think we're sharing the same thoughts!

So now, 10 months on and we have one song left to record and a big album launch at our local Arts Centre on the 7th February 2014.

So how did we decide on the name 'Songbird'? Well, to be honest with you I don't think we did decide. I think it was given to us. A gift that God, fate, the universe whatever you chose to believe in gave us.

Rewind back 3 years and out of nowhere Dan started to call me songbird in our email exchanges. I thought it was very sweet and it kind of stuck but it really was only between Dan and I.

Rewind 22 months and Steve, Michael and I were trying to think of a group name for the three of us to preform under. "How about songbird?" Suggested Michael and that was it. I don't think we could ever have been called anything else.

Writing the album has given me a place to channel and work through a lot of my emotions about going from perfectly healthy to chronically ill. Steve's studio has become a little haven for me where I go and I know even if I don't sing a note I will leave feeling lighter and affirmed.

And singing? What does singing do for me? Singing makes my soul soar like an eagle over a canyon. When I am singing I do not belong to this broken body, I am content, I am weightless, I'm boundless, I am free.

I have always been a huge fan of Enya's music and I think perhaps her version of this old hymn sums it all up for me.
                                                    "How Can I Keep From Singing?"

My life goes on in endless song
Above earth's lamentations,
I hear the real, though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.

Through all the tumult and the strife
I hear it's music ringing,
It sounds an echo in my soul.
How can I keep from singing?

While though the tempest loudly roars,
I hear the truth, it liveth.
And though the darkness 'round me close,
Songs in the night it giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I'm clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

 When tyrants tremble in their fear
And hear their death knell ringing,
When friends rejoice both far and near
How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile
Our thoughts to them are winging,
When friends by shame are undefiled
How can I keep from singing?