I wrote a song this week. It was the first song that I've written for a while, the infrequency due to my frantic past few months. It takes some space in the mind to write a song, to be still enough to let something grow. It's like making bread. You have the yeast, which is the idea, you mix it with ingredients and it rises and grows into something puffy, if given the right conditions. I'd had this song idea in my mind for 3 years, then all of a sudden it came out. It did require a little research along the way, but I more or less concentrated on it for a good two days after which it was fully formed, baked and browned.
This song is about the legacy of mixing heritages, describing subtle beauty in how generations carry things on. It's based on the history of the Celts intermingling with Hawaiian royalty through marriage. From that joining, and with it a population of Celts on the islands, there began a legacy of people celebrating both cultures. I witnessed it when I first went to Hawaii in 2008. I was performing at a music festival and heard some young girls, most of mixed descents, singing traditional Celtic songs, in tartans and leis. I was struck by one girl especially, as she sang Sally Gardens in a soft Hawaiian-style falsetto, like the breeze off of the ocean. The Scotsman who married Princess Likelike in the 1800s, I'm sure he was not knowing of the possibility of me hearing this young girl sing so many generations later, and then writing about it in song. I'm sure Princess Kaiulani did not expect to be the subject of a chorus composed by a musician writing from the state of Utah, but I'm very glad to have included her in a song. She's a beauty and is worth singing about. It was my pleasure.