We often say that it’s been a rough time or that it’s been a “tough few weeks”. We sometimes say that things have never been so tough. But these days, these times, we may well be right. And, at times like this, we always take solace and comfort in each other, in our friends, our loved ones… and the music that moves us, warms us and makes us smile and cry. At times like this, we turn to artists who speak to our best selves. And there is no artist who speaks so well to our best selves than Eleanor Brown.
Eleanor Brown’s latest collection of songs will immediately flow into your bloodstream like they have always been there, like you’ve known them all your life, like they come from your very soul – because they come directly from Eleanor’s. Heartfelt, open, vulnerable and soulful, these songs speak to the times we live in, the times we’ve been through, the times yet to come and offer comfort and solace, joy and spirit and soul.
We use that word a lot – ‘soul’. We apply it to music a lot, like somehow it makes the music deeper, richer, makes it speak to us. But how often, when we listen to that music, do we really feel it has touched us in our souls? How often do we feel it has connected to us on a level we can’t even articulate or explain but that somehow, someway, the songs we’ve heard have lifted us up out of our daily existence and shown us that there is more, there is other, there is greater and there is solace? Not often, if ever. These songs are soulful in every sense of that word. Eleanor sings straight from hers to ours and each song digs deeper into the places we don’t even admit to ourselves are there. These songs explore the connection with our history, our ancestors, our land, our place, our selves, our loves, our losses, our greatest sadness and our biggest joy. She explores what it feels like to live at the edge, journey into the unknown and sings to us of how it feels to come through into a new life, a new self, a new world.
These are fragile times. Days of fear and loneliness. We need songs and singers who can hold our hands as we walk together into the darkness of a future we can’t comprehend or don’t want to. Eleanor sings of hope and togetherness, of weathering storms and transforming hearts, and somehow, someway, she enables us to go on, filled with the understanding that there is goodness, there is a light at the end of all tunnels and the sun will always rise again. These songs are healing balms and soothing potions.
How many songs can we truly say have changed our life? Not many. Yet here again, in her newest collection, Eleanor gives us a rich and revealing experience of songs that stay with you forever. They cry out to be heard and shared and Eleanor Brown’s work cries out to be supported. We need artists like her now more than ever.
Written by Philip Ralph – writer & actor.