Annie Lennox LOUD is about how resilient we are. Not just our ability to survive but our ability to find joy even through difficult times.

The words and the music are a celebration of our ability to survive. It was inspired by Songs of Change participant Sheila, but it is a sentiment that many members of the group understood.

Laura's Words

A moving aspect of our group experience is that most of us have battled through difficult phases in our lives. Depression, loneliness, the struggle to get a grip on life after a trauma, these are common themes among us. If we could, in a song, portray that in a positive light. We’ve come out the other side. See how we enjoy our “new” lives full of nature, and enriching relationships, perhaps it could be helpful to those currently struggling

Lyrics

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud
Annie Lennox LOUD

Annie Lennox is Sheila’s song. Early on in the workshops we did an exercise where people were asked to talk about objects that they possessed. And Sheila talked about a dress she had bought when she was younger. She captured it in a haiku.

Sheila's Words

Object associated with adult life

I have a dress. I still have it. It’s been 26 years in my wardrobe. From my Annie Lennox days. I don’t keep things. I’d just come out of a big depression.
I have a photo of me wearing it. Bought it in Wallace. It’s a midi dress. I wore it at a 40th birthday party. And I felt fantastic.

Long Red Midi Dress
Annie Lennox Music LOUD
Greatest Wildest Times

The flames, they came, erased so much
We’ll never know the cost
Our histories in artefacts
Reduced to ash and dust
I cannot trust the ground beneath
To hold me firm and sound
For I have learnt the world can change
Reshape, a seismic howl

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud
Annie Lennox LOUD

Another object Sheila talked about was a photo. It is the only photo she has of her entire family. In it, she’s wearing a blue chiffon dress with white hand-painted things. Sheila talked about clothes a lot. The textures of cloth. What they felt like to touch. To wear. The details of patterns. Charity shop browsing is one of her favourite pastimes. The photo is one of Sheila’s most precious possessions because she doesn’t have a lot of things from her childhood because everything was destroyed in a house fire.

The child I was soft sheen to knee
Was fearless, quick to grow
But though she’s gone the phoenix rose
To seize life by the throat
So now I dress in sequins
Stretching out across the world
Shout look at me, watch me dance
I am beautiful behold

Sheila is beautiful although for the most part that is not a word that she would use to describe herself. Sheila now has adult children and in the text below she describes the joy of seeing herself through their eyes.

Sheila's Words

BLUE – Life moment
Shopping for mother of the groom dress.
Feeling stressed, pressure, knot in stomach.
Boutique chosen, calm and experienced shop assistant.
Step with trepidation into cubicle, praying,
Outfits are hanging expectantly.
Last dress, BLUE, plain soft sheen to below knee, top embellished with blue, navy and black sequins. Big blue, navy and black bow on shoulder.
Perfect. I feel a smile on my lips.
Step outside, my daughter says ” Mam, you’re beautiful”

I have walked on broken glass
I have fallen on the rocks
I have kept on movin’ on
I am Annie Lennox PROUD
I am Annie Lennox LOUD

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud

Long red midi dress
Shock of wild white hair
Arms high, love cloud

Annie Lennox LOUD

Annie Lennox LOUD

Annie Lennox LOUD