Fri, November 20, 2009

An Introduction to the World of Commissioned Songwriting for the Bereaved

Most people don’t even know that it is possible to commission a song, but it is. I have custom-created songs for individuals for twelve years now, and while I have composed and recorded songs for more topics than you can imagine (new baby, wedding song, a song to psych someone up to clean their office, a song for a tribe someone visited in Ghana, Africa) I have found, over and over again, that the area I am most drawn to compose for has to do with end-of-life. Sometimes people come to me because they are struggling with a life-threatening illness and they want to have a song created to help them find strength to fight. Other times, the fight has come to an end, and I am sought out to help create a Legacy Song, or to create a song that will help someone to say good-bye. Other times, I am working on projects for those who have been left behind—either honoring an anniversary of loss, or struggling to find peace with unfinished business once someone they love has died. And there are even times when the song I create is “in the voice of” one who has passed on, as a way of helping someone who is left behind to “hear” what there might be to hear, when we piece their story together and take the profound journey into what a song “from the other side” might say. If you are curious about what it might be about end-of-life projects that draws me in, I think it comes down to something simple, and beautiful. It is my experience that the air seems to get “thinner,” somehow, around death. Suddenly, as we face our own death, or the death of someone we love, much of what used to stand between us falls away. Much of what once consumed our attention dissipates. And what we are left with is the essence of what we truly feel. What we are left with sometimes is pure pain, but also pure love. And often, with it comes the bravery, brought about by dwindling final weeks, and hours, and minutes, to say what is truly in our hearts. And so I find myself, with each new and different song project, at the center of the storm, and in the close, and often teary, confidence of one who is suddenly standing in “thinner air” and seeing life from the standpoint of its deeper essence. It is my great honor and one of my most profound pleasures in life, to bear witness to those who seek me out, and to find the fullest, and bravest, and most authentic way to amplify their most sacred thoughts and communications, through song. It is from this place that I share with you a song commissioned by a father dying of ALS (Lou Gherig’s Disease), for his young daughter. Debilitated as he was, he was only able to type the answer to one Song-Interview question a day (more commonly the Song Interview is conducted in person or on the phone, over a 2-hour period). For months, I would compose one daily question, and he would respond, until we had a sufficient connection for me to know what to write, on his behalf. This song is his reminder to his daughter of w