FREYjA played live in London at long last in June. As many of you know, I had not been on stage with my original material since my darling Pa passed. Things sure can knock the wind out of your sails. Well, it had been too long!
I sang just four songs at piano with a cellist, Maria Rodriguez Reina, in a showcase at The Bedford www.thebedford.com in South London. The very same venue where Ed Sheehan started his career. We were very blessed to have Stewart Darrietta hop on stage to play and sing Hallelujah at the end and all the artists who sang that night got up and harmonised. Steward was in London on his way to Edinburgh, where he plays to his annual sellout audiences My Leonard Cohen.
That little performance with Mars wass a teaser to a series of up-coming concerts FREYjA will be performing with full band at a number of venues in town soon. New album, The Furnace Recordings, is bubbling away in the cauldron. So watch this space, my friends.
DAY FIVE: We creatives work hard. Whether we run our Art as a business or no. Writers, painters, musicians…we are constantly practisin
New FREYjA Song Death's Anniversaries and the inspiration behind it. Subscribe at
Ode to Anniversaries
This new song makes eleven in as many months, after a ten year gap of no songwriting at all. I wrote it on the 11th August after two weeks of trying to track down someone close who went awol and also going through the anniversary of something else a little sad.
I wonder what they conjure up for you, these images. I prefer it resonates with your own private stories (which is what songwriting should be able to do) but I know it can be fascinating to know why and how an artist writes a particular story, perhaps then it will touch an even deeper nerve. I will share a little with you.
Yes, it is about death, loss, grief…a ghost is speaking from the other side…but death can be the loss of a friendship or a viewpoint or a lifestyle. It can also be the birth of a new – not necessarily welcome – perspective on a journey with someone you thought was going one way, when it takes a sharp turn or you reach a new understanding about your own or someone else’s limitations.
The child in this song is a victim of war. My mother lived during the bombings of Berlin. Both my parents lost their Dads in the war, in the same year, on different sides of the battle. I still feel the tremors of that within my family all these years later, for the damage which was done within both my Dad’s and my Mutti’s hearts was profound. WWII lives on believe me. All the refugees from our current days crises in the world will bear scarred children too.
The bombing of Dresden too has always haunted me, ever since reading Kurt Vonnegut. That is where ‘and so it goes’ comes from. I look forward to recording this one. It came to me very quickly. It started with a classical Bach-like Fugue and transformed into a living organism for me. Within about two hours it was fait de complit.
Death’s Anniversaries:
1
And so it goes, another year
It doesn’t matter any more
It doesn’t show, it wasn’t here
It wasn’t here at all
2
And so it goes, another child
Beneath a circus carousel
She barely heard the sound
Before she hit the ground
And all the horses fell
Chorus
All these roses, all those thorns
All those fairy-tales
And loves gone wrong
Who wants to carry these flowers for me?
See, the grave lies empty
But the kite flies over
And it’s always something’s
anniversary.
3
And so it blows, you watch time fall
Or try to catch it in your hand
I let it soar and blow some more
You never know where it might land.
4
It’s not so bad, outside the walls
Though no-one stays here long
It ain’t a world for souls like hers
The not so very strong
Chorus
All these roses, all those thorns
All those fairy-tales
And loves gone wrong
Who wants to carry these flowers for me?
See, the grave lies empty
But the kite flies over
And it’s always something’s
anniversary.
© FREYjA R Rennie 2019 August
(Photo by Sasha Damjanovski)