Music and mourning meet in our latest collection, The Grieving Stories.

Twenty tributes to mothers, fathers, friends, siblings, teachers, colleagues.

I peer into the rear-view mirror/ at my sister’s baby face/The tears brimming  Michael Leach (Over The Rainbow)

Over the years, while my mother’s faith in Christianity declined, her belief in country music only increased. Angela Savage (The Gambler)

It was as if I had heard Bad Reputation for the first time. As it directly related to my sister. As it stands as a song. And it is, my friends, a ripper.  Rick Kane (Bad Reputation)

At home and still in my funereal black, I do the obligatory YouTube search for the track. The internet soon shepherds me away from The King’s back-catalogue to a tear-invoking power-ballad from a band I’d followed since the 1990s. Lucia Nardo (Run by Snow Patrol).

Erica was a firecracker of a woman. I liked her straight away. She was rocking a bright lippy, and wearing red with an utter disregard for the notion that red-heads should never, ever. Martina Medica (Purple Sneakers by You Am I).

As fitting as it was to imagine Mrs Hart perched atop a fleecy cloud, my sympathies were firmly with her howling, motherless child. Melanie Cheng. (Bright Eyes).

One of my strongest memories is the pure joy we got out of making each other laugh. Belly laughs that happened while you hung upside down on the monkey bars were even more hilarious. Aimee Chan (Help!)

Trav. A country boy who’d become a nomad struggling for direction. Having just moved from sleeping under a stairwell at a Melbourne backpacker’s hostel, Trav had no car licence, no qualifications, no job, no girlfriend and no plans – he just walked the Earth and stuff would happen. Jeff Dowsing (Alive by Pearl Jam).

This collection of narratives also has stories by Ann-Marie Smith, Annette Signorini, Jane Leonard, Luke Davies, David Oke, Hugh Jones, Brian Nankervis, Georgia Logan, and Maria Majsa.

Plus, Paul Kelly gives us a glimpse into how he wrote Feelings Of Grief.

The Grieving Stories – music and mourning.

 

Editor: Vin Maskell Assistant editor: Louise Maskell Web legend: James Demetrie, of DISKMANdotNET