In the days leading up to our concert, Together We Sing, the author of our programme notes provides an alternative look at the pieces featured on Saturday 6th June. The series may be interspersed with other posts but will be more or less daily! We hope you enjoy it.
I Dreamed of Rain
How would you describe yourself to someone you had never met?
Search online for Jan Garrett and you will discover that she is a native of Colorado, a jazz singer and with a poet’s soul, a multi-award-winning songwriter, seasoned performance coach, wilderness vision quester and Certified Laughing Instructor, who teaches with a twinkle and inspires by example. Her performances are rich and intelligent, a feast of musical endorphins and deep optimism, a velvet-hammer wake-up call as satisfying to the soul as they are to the ear. And she wrote, I Dreamed of Rain.
As a child, Garrett spent a lot of time day-dreaming in sun-dappled aspen glens at the family’s cabin in the Rocky Mountains. And at 2.30 every afternoon it would rain for 15-20 minutes, leaving a delicious fresh smell of rain in the air, washing everything clean and the world would start over.
The summer of 2002 was very dry in Colorado, wildfires were common and, with memories of 9/11 still fresh and a war in Iraq imminent, the political scene was equally uncertain. And Garrett began to have dreams. Of rain. But although it was raining, in the midst of these long and luxurious soakings, everyone was laughing, all old resentments and debts were forgiven and the long drought forgotten. Then, early one morning a few months later, she heard the sound of rain on the roof and a simple melody and words crept into her head: “I dreamed of rain, and the rains came, soft and easy, sweet and clear.”
Her immediate thought was to rhyme clear with fear – and washed away my fear – but suddenly all her guardian angels began to yell at her once:
“Don’t even go there; don’t even bring the fear thing in.”
“But it has to rhyme,” she argued.
“No, it doesn’t,” they replied. “Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. Just feel deeply into the rain. What is it your heart really wants to say?”
“I just want peace to spread over the land.”
And who wouldn’t want to our dreams to come true sometimes? I dreamed of rain and peace spread over the land.
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