It’s taken a lifetime to realize how eternal sound is. It’s taken a lifetime to realize that through every journey I have been on, music and sound punctuated each moment. Memories seem to each have their own unique soundtrack… and that’s what this space is all about. Sound and Life. Soundtrakz… A music review of sorts, juxtaposed with moments in life.
Where am I now? I’m in a very new place in my life. A place that has required a complete reorganization of my concept of self. I’m a Daddy’s girl… through and through. I now find myself staring down the anniversary of my Daddy’s passing. So it’s been almost a year of bewilderment giving way to rediscovery. The phases of grieving and acceptance; of coming to terms with the inevitability of life’s expiration.
This state of being I now find myself in plays upon the extremes of silence and auditory euphoria… music. In one moment, the deafening silence left by the loss of his laughter is replaced by the life power I receive from music. There is a song that has attached itself to me in this episode in my life. This SoundTrak is by The Foreign Exchange, called ‘Shelter’
Shelter by The Foreign Exchange: https://youtu.be/d5wYGU7Cq4I
You want to be more than just another number,
But It looks like all the contemplation,
It goes on and on, it goes on and on again
Much more
Now the pressures starting to get to ya
All you want to do now is surrender
It goes on and on, it goes on and on again
When you think you’ve had enough
But it just aint adding it up
I will keep you safe inside
Shelter from the rising tide
Wow yeah
Now you’re free to give yourself permission,
All your fears have gone into the mission
We go on and on, we go on and on again, Yea
So much
What’s already lost you left behind ya
So when you were down let me remind ya
We go on and on we go on and on again (yea yea)
When you think you’ve had enough, but it just aint adding it up
I will keep you safe inside, shelter from the rising tide wow yea
This song attached itself to me for a few reasons.
There is a clarity in the blend of synths and electronic elements that feel brand new yet is totally encompassing the futuristic soul that The Foreign Exchange is known for. Almost a calling echo of tones is met with the crisp and deliberate cut of the percussion. Not a song that makes you want to get up and dance. More a groove that infectiously causes your neck to snap. What pushes this song to its pinnacle for me is the honest and beautifully empathetic combination of the voices of Phonte and Carmen Rodgers. I hear the longing and surrender in Carmen. I hear the assured prophecy from Phonte that calmly, and without hesitation, ‘Now you’re free to give yourself permission…’ There’s something very endearing about giving someone the freedom to let go knowing they will continue… and know that those of us left behind will also continue. I feel this within this song.
The end of my Dad’s life was a difficult one. He was in a tremendous amount of pain. Slowly he was losing everything that made him who he was. He was the strongest man I have ever known. Yet the frailness that eventually took over his body hid that. He lived a life of dignity. He was proud and raised us to be the same. He always lived by his own terms. He chose his end, on his own terms. At first, this decision was mind shattering. How could he choose to leave me. But as this song sings out… ‘it just wasn’t adding up’. There was no recovery to be had. There was no going back to his old self. In many ways, he was already drifting away.
I made him the promise that no matter where he was, ‘I would keep him safe inside’… And I have. In the end I realise that he would have hung on forever if he could. But for both he and I, there was beauty in the acceptance that he would live ‘on and on… on and on again’ in another plane. Physically, he is no longer here with me… but I feel him in the melody of a song… I hear him in the crash of the waves. Sound is eternal. And I will eternally be his ‘Shelter’
The Foreign Exchange:
Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/artist/60R4M19QBXvs0gO4IL6CpS
Soundcloud – https://soundcloud.com/theforeignexchangemusic
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/FEofficial
Twitter – https://twitter.com/FEofficial
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/feofficial/
FaceBook – https://www.facebook.com/theforeignexchange
Amazing review.
Great review!! Thanks for the insight!