Soul Food

Looking for a bit of inspiration, I posted on Facebook a request for suggestions for something new to try. I was pleased to receive many suggestions (including yodelling, which I may just store away for a rainy day), but the one that rocked my world was from my friend Ryan Youens, who is a professional music arranger, composer, conductor and music tutor. This clever and generous man suggested that I write some lyrics and he would write the music to the song. This isn’t strictly a new thing for me – I dabbled in a bit of song-writing with my brother when I was in my teens, but I haven’t even thought about doing it in (gulp) 10 years, so it’s new in the sense that it’s not something I am in the habit of doing.


Pouncing on this opportunity, I set to immediately and wrote the following:

Soul food

Every day with you is soul food
You hold a mirror up to me
And when I’m losing control, you
Fill me up with your soul food

Last night you looked at me and smiled,
Said, ‘Come here, my love.
‘You look tired and you need some time
To remember what you’re here for.’

It didn’t take long for me to realise
That you were one of a kind
A special light surrounded you
The warm glow from a huge heart and mind

I flicked it on to Ryan, and he replied immediately, saying he’d ‘whip it up’. A couple of days later I was stunned to hear that he had not only written the music, he’d also recorded the backing track with piano, guitar, drums and bass. He suggested that I come over and learn it and record it with him. By this stage I was so excited that I nearly wet my pants.

So four days after I wrote the lyrics, I found myself at Ryan’s house hearing the song for the first time, while his lovely wife cooked us a beautiful tortilla vegetable stack for dinner. It’s an amazing experience to jot down a few lines and have them set to music. The words came alive and took on a whole new level of meaning. I learnt the song (and here I should add ‘incredibly patient’ to the list of Ryan’s virtues) and recorded it. You can hear it here.

For the next few days I swanned around grinning from ear to ear, and not even the strongest willed toddler (who actually lives in my house, by the way – I will have to get on to ringing the Guiness Book of Records) could bring me down off cloud nine.

Ryan turned up to my husband’s 30th a few days later with the complete package of CD, chords and sheet music, all professionally bound with some photos of me recording the song. Seriously, how do you thank someone for this? Suggestions are welcome. My husband, for whom the song is written, is quite smitten with the song and has been humming it around the house ever since. (‘Da da da da soul food…’)

Meanwhile I’ve been considering what I have to offer for people looking for new experiences. My number one offer is a close encounter of the toddler kind, which is highly recommended as she is rather delightful, if a little demanding, which I suppose is the wont of people her age. I could also teach you how to make some mean chocolate chip biscuits, and I have a trampoline you can jump on. If you are interested in taking on any of these experiences please enquire within.