I was recently reminded of the power of song writing by my youngest son playing his guitar to a tune he is working on.  It took me back to over six years ago when I rushed my mother to the ER of a hospital in Cape Town, South Africa whilst on a highly intensive international consultancy project.  In the meantime, my good friend, Professor of Strategy (now a retired academic and permanent dog walker!) and talented singer/songwriter sat in the waiting room of the beautifully positioned yet austere Groote Schuur Hospital capturing his experience.

In the meantime I was behind the old rusty double doors of the government owned hospital struggling to stay calm while several doctors ran critically important Dementia and other mental illnesses tests on my mother.  Unknowingly, we were simultaneously capturing what we witnessed – me writing down the surreal medical questioning, with my mother whispering to me that she feels her “words slipping away” as she speaks, and him with lyrics that depicted the hospital waiting room with its continuous flood of bleeding, injured men, woman and children.

Hours later I emerged through the doors to find him with a completed song in his hand..with an indescribable expression…the song we called ‘Waiting Waiting’….we waited for hours and hours and hours that day.  The words and voices evoke a deep emotional response in me, and is a cerebral experience that sends the emotional centres of my brain (amygdala and cerebellum) into a humming frenzy.

That is what music does in real terms, even though the scientific community still debate the neurological significance of listening to music alongside the archeological evidence for how long it has been around.  The Sotho villagers in Lesotho get it – they consider singing an everyday activity, seamlessly reflecting their lives through music across all generations.   As Pinker, the cognitive scientist says “Music pushes buttons that responds to emotional signals”.

The song was written by Lester Lloyd-Reason in Cape Town, produced in Johannesburg and filmed partly in Cambridge UK with our African students.

As we immerse ourselves in 2019  – take some time to write your life’s song and capture the melody of your journey.  This song means something different to me than it does to the songwriter or to you, but I hope my mother’s song encourages you to write your words and finding your rhythm…