This song wrote itself on a ‘bright sunshiney day’ in the summer of 2002, when I had ‘a thousand jobs to do’ and no time to stop and smell the roses! It is a song to remind us to dream, no matter how busy we become. (This song is not to be confused with the WarHammer game!)
Archives
Spark
Spark was one of the massed sing pieces commissioned for Sea Sound Sing Festival 2002. Twelve local choirs took part in an outdoor concert as part of the Streets of Brighton Festival. It’s an elemental kinda thing… This song is often sung as part of my song cycle The Four Directions, as it combines as the elements and their cardinal points!
Yes
The sister song to My Eyes Are Opened. It is taken from the same poem by e.e.cummings and the two can be performed together – with Yes following My Eyes are Opened
My Eyes Are Opened
My Eyes Are Opened has been sung by community choirs all over Europe! It is more infamously known as ‘The bup bup song (I refer to it as my ‘one hit wonder’). Not everyone knows, however, that it has a sister song called Yes which is designed to follow straight on from My Eyes. Both songs were originally inspired by poetry by e.e.cummings’ poem I thank you God for most this amazing
My interpretation is very different to Eric Whittaker’s! But I love his too!
Shine
This is one of my happiest songs to date! I describe Shine as 21st Century blues. I wrote this song after a friend, who had gone an amazingly exciting global adventure, wrote me a postcard with only the words ‘Shine – without explanation’ on it. She never did explain.
September
I wrote this song after 9/11, inspired by a conversation I had with my (then) eight-year-old children about how the WTC events had made them feel. September sees those events through the eyes of children, who just wanted to lock the door, close the curtains and forget about the rest of the world.
In the subsequent 16 years, I have written many songs around the theme of strength and solidarity through adversity, but this song is still as powerful for me as the ‘stand up and be counted’ songs, as the headlines continue to bring terrifying news of division and bigotry.