Military Wife: the extended story
Cath Parsons
(click here for the short short story, or check out my earlier blog post, Military Wife: the short story.)
With three months of rehearsal, singing for others, and an excellent list of inspiring words, I headed into the AMWChoir Canberra break with confidence that a song would emerge. By late January, despite a sincere effort, a signature song was nowhere to be found - inspiration evaded me.
One weekend, as I returned from dropping my husband to help build a deck at a friends home, the task came to mind again. I went down the same musical paths I had been rejecting for weeks and resigned myself to the fact that it was not going to happen. I should channel those energies into learning and teaching new music to the women.
As this thought crossed my mind, I experienced a figurative slap over the back of the head - 'You are trying to write the wrong kind of song!'
'Okay, then what is the right kind of song?' I asked out loud.
'Work it out,' returned the answer.
So, driving along Northbourne Avenue, I started to recall the types of songs that singers I had worked with over the years returned to time and again - songs they would ask to sing when all the other singing had finished. Following this thought train, the opening theme of Military Wife, complete with words, came to me. I sang it into my phone at the next set of lights, arrived home and promptly forgot about it.
The next morning, driving the same road reminded me of the inspiration received the day before. Again, while driving along Northbourne Ave, the second and third themes quickly and were sung into the phone. This time I did something about it.
It took eight months to refine the song to singable. The emotion from the women when we first sang it as a choir I was not expecting. To this day I am still surprised and pleased to experience the connection the song enables.
Northbourne Ave! Who would have thought it an avenue for such inspiration?
Return to ABOUT or check out the recordings and sheet music at MILITARY WIFE.