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1/12/2022 8 Comments

32. Seed Song

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Song Seed Song
Words & Music ​by Barbara McAfee
Lyrics
Oh the darkness has swallowed me whole,
and I cannot remember the light.
Oh, I feel I am losing my soul to the night, to the night.

You are a seed.
This is the waiting time.
You hold a dream of green that will call you to the sky.

Picture
Notes: A song with two voices, in a way -- the cry of the heart which feels swallowed by darkness and lost, and the response or presence of a wisdom -- an angel, or ancestor, or Yoda?! -- who sees the seed inside the darkness that holds the dream of green during the waiting time.  I love the way this song lets me give voice to different experiences. Barbara has given us an extremely satisfying lift on the "call to the sky" line... and a lovely low rumble for "cannot remember", and "to the night." In western classical baroque times, that was called word painting... a wonderful way of yoking different parts of our brains into a whole, connected intent.

Songwriter Info: Barbara McAfee is a master voice coach, singer/songwriter, song leader, and river walker who lives an hour outside of Minneapolis/St. Paul in St Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

Links:
Barbara's website is at www.barbaramcafee.com
Barbara's Tedx talk on the Full Voice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze763kgrWGg

Nuts & Bolts: 4:4, minor, 3 layers, 2 with the same words.
​

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8 Comments
Resa
1/12/2022 12:26:59 pm

OMG Patricia I am new to your podcasts but love Juneberry and Pocket Songs. The Seed Song is just what I needed today, to acknowledge the depression, and it helped me lift out of it. Several years ago I completed training as a therapeutic musician but have not been able to be with patients since COVID. That feeling of helplessness is just as sad, because I believe music can heal the world. Thank you for reminding me that I can use music to heal myself as well!

Reply
Patricia Norton
1/12/2022 05:01:34 pm

Resa, I'm so glad you're using music to heal yourself... and I'm sure there will come a time when you're bringing it back into the community as a therapeutic musician.... I just love the sound of those two words together!!! I'm so glad Seed Song was right for today, and thank you for writing to say...

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Wendy Luella Perkins
1/12/2022 09:29:38 pm

Love this beautiful song, your gentle singing of it, your vulnerable sharing. So grateful for you Patricia, for a Breath of Song, for Barbara McAfee.

Reply
Patricia Norton
1/12/2022 10:03:39 pm

That's absolutely lovely to read, Wendy Luella... thank you. I love the way singing can gently encourage us to feel what's really going on inside...

Reply
Herb h
1/17/2022 07:42:05 pm

Such a sad song

Reply
Patricia Norton
1/17/2022 09:24:18 pm

Ah, Herb... yes. It is sad in some ways. The fear of the darkness and the sense of losing one's soul... yet there's also the awareness of a seed of green at the same time, and that voice has a rising, lifting line -- so there is happiness, too. Complex, like life, right?

Reply
Stephanie Carney
1/18/2022 12:18:52 pm

I love this one and do not really feel it's sadness, just a subtle reality which is then uplifted by the second verse. Just wish I had the range to sing the higher notes of the second verse, but even singing the first, I can hear and feel that second verse along with its seed gathering in the darkness. Thank you.

Reply
Patricia Norton
1/18/2022 03:00:36 pm

Thank you so much for writing, Stephanie! I'm so glad you love this song -- it is endlessly fascinating to me how songs land different ways for different people -- and even simply on different days. The humming sliding sighs we do when warming up may help your voice gently discover those higher notes? And I love the way you hear and feel the higher notes even as you sing the lower ones. That's brilliant!

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