The Songs of Robert Burns - Aye Waukin O

( Linked to the Robert Burns Songs Blog at http://www.johnsparks.com/ )

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The Snow fell thick and fast last night. I sat in my living room and watched the transformation. Everything appears newly born and uncovered. It made me think of the relationship that I have with the Burns songs I am recording. The words and melody are there, and have been for a very long time, but I want to sing them with fresh heart - to lightly dust fresh snow on aincient lands.

 It has taken a long time for my heart to move on from a Parcel O Rogues.  I have been twisting this way and that, playing around with songs, melodies and instrumentaion. Finally, feeling completely lost, I posted a question on facebook asking for some guidance.."any favourite Burns songs out there?"  I had told myself that I would record whatever the first song was that came back to me. It seemed as good a way as any to choose - to let the universe decide. Back came Elaine Robertson, an old school mate from thirty years ago, quick and simple, with the song  - "Aye waukin' O" . Thank you Elaine.

So here we go again.

I first approached this song as a woman who has lost her lover - who is now alone and grieving - blurring her eyes wi' weepin' - so says the song. Try as I might though, with every note I sing, I feel joy. The bliss of anticipation. The sweet sadness that brief parting holds. And now I know.

I am lying in bed, chasing sleep with foolish hope. The church clock strikes and another hour is taken from me. It is in these quiet hours that race and yet lengthen that I can be most present. All is silent - all is my love - all is now.

As with A Parcel O Rogues, this song also features the piano. I tend to get the chord structure there, letting my hands fall until my heart pulls. Once the foundation chords are there, I  record the piano and lead vocal. The rest of the instrumentation should be carefully chosen and dance around the song without disturbing the equilibrium. Oh yes - and harmonies - only a couple sparingly placed. The song will let me know when it's ready. That much I have learned - to listen to the song and what it's saying, however much the ego is tempted to promenade!

This is a joyful journey - an album of the twilight hour. I was reading Neil Gunn's "The other Landscape" yesterday and came upon these beautiful words that best describe that place betwixt one world and another.

"Many are susceptible to the peculiar power of the twilight particularly in lonely places. Two orders of being - the visible and the invisible, pause on the doorstep of this grey hour"

 It is A pleasure and an honour to unveil that voice which comes from me, but is not of me.  My mother often tells me that my Grandfather dearly loved Robert Burns, committing many poems and songs to memory. Though we never met, I feel his warm hand on my shoulder ..................."Aye, you're doin fine lass, keep goin'"

The Songs of Robert Burns - Finding the voice

Recording the vocal for Parcel of Rogues. Six hours later and I'm still searching for the spirit of the song.  I was so sure that I had the voice when I was singing in the car or round the house, but as soon as I have to be completely at one with the piano part and connect, I feel lost. I will try to explain.

In every song there is a spirit that want to sing through me. I am just the channel. This spirit is a woman in her early forties, but feels much older. She is gracious and sad. The girl still sings in her heart, but experience has arrested her instincts. She knows the soil and the stillness of the land. She watches progress and grows weary with the dying of the old ways. The land is flesh of her flesh and bone of her bone.

The Songs of Robert Burns - In the heart and of the heart

I'm reading "The lost Glen" by Neil Gunn at the moment and from within the pages of his book, the words call to me.

As I start recording my new Burns album, so I search for the right words to describe the journey. Words that tell of the longing and connection I feel with these songs, and the need to be part of their being. Words that are the source of the feelings that become the sounds, that become the songs, that become the album.

If I force them they do not come - yet I open the pages of this book .... and here they are..........

"When a woman has a golden voice and sings with great art, the song can yet be borne. But when the same woman croons to herself a tune out of the heart of her race, then she is moving forces beyond her art's knowing or caring."

"Motherhood and childhood, of the one and the many,with all the passions that have gone to their making and the memories drawn off. With no more why of wherefore than exist love and life and death."

So - here is the reason I come back time and time again to the simplicity of the song.

I have been singing for many years now and yes, I love to develop my "art", with all it's twists and glamour and trickery. I practice turns and grace notes until they appear effortless. I feel the need to get it "just right", and sometimes, when I do, it is indeed a thing of beauty.

I can sing like almost anyone if I put my mind to it.

But if I still my mind and let flood my heart, I am me and not me. I am nothing and everything. Being without weight, form or limit..........and that is effortless ...... and then the pages open and these words appear:

" And then up through this voice of the race came the singer's own voice, in notes that grew rich, spreading out and sank once again to the land"

From the beginning of this journey back to the old songs, John has always known the importance of this simplicity. Just sing the songs, he says. And I do, and I will, and here they come........................

The Songs of Robert Burns - This is what I know.......

Dear friends - After John and I decided to produce an album to bring the songs of Robert Burns to life, I feel that I need to let my mind fly free and that I must record my thoughts that come from free flight unedited.Why Robert Burns? What drives my passion? Why do I feel this calling so deeply..................................

The song words and tune are there already - they move me so that my heart is pulled. I walk around with them in my conscious thoughts and they play in my dreams. I know what the intention is behind the words. I know what the universe wants them to say.

I need to create a landscape that can hold the song - to go to each song's land.

Sometimes I toil, sometimes I fly, sometimes I swim, sometimes I burn..... Some songs call for landscapes that are rough-hewn from the earth and stone, revealed through great struggle. Other songs need to be lifted from the pull of the earth and all it's limitations - free to fly and sparkle in kaleidoscope silver. 

There are burning songs that pulsate within and are a constant longing of the body's needs. Others are a hand lifting the petal of a flower to marvel in it's simplicity.

Burns knew all of these things. He knew the light and the longing, the stoor and the smeddum, the rage and the retribution. He weighed heavy under the words until connection came. Then the words flowed and the sanctuary of creation was his relief.

This is what I know.