My Home is Where I Am

I keep saying that Everyone can sing.

All that’s needed is to rid oneself of all inhibitions and take a deep plunge into one’s inner self. As for myself, when I was five years old I took up playing the piano, an instrument to which I was brought by my mother’s firm hand. My dad would sit by my side for hours, listening to those early attempts. Later on, by the time I’d managed to play a little piece or two well enough it made him so happy he would burst into tears. There were times he would wake me up in the middle of the night asking me to play for some buddies of his that he had brought round.. But then as I grew up I rebelled, and eventually gave it all up. Instead opting for the stage. There was dad kneeling beside me, tears streaming down his face, beseeching me to go playing, saying that music was everything, that it was a language that everyone could understand, a universal means of communication, and that only if I was going to make his cherished dream come true he would be able to die in peace.

Still I would not carry on, I sold the piano, the cello, fell in love and moved to Wales, a place where I could not even speak the language. I gave birth to a daughter – depression, confusion, love, I hated everything. Then a letter reached me in January, “Dearest Ida, That’s life, babies are born, coming into this world while others leave. Your Daddy died in November.”

I couldn’t weep but I sang and I have sung ever since.

This CD is dedicated to my father.