Album – Songs of a Swan
This page contains a sampling of songs from an album I’m putting together of Jann’s original music. The final version of the album will have somewhere between 12 and 15 songs.
To appreciate the title of the album you must know a few things about Jann’s life. She was born into an abusive family, both physically and emotionally. I won’t go into details about the physical abuse. Suffice it to say, it was bad. Her childhood interest in art was shutdown by her parents, despite school teachers expressing positive feedback to them about her budding skills in this area. Art, in her family, was considered useless. Instead, she was forced to look after her younger siblings and act as a kitchen drudge. These, her parents reckoned, were fitting activities for a daughter.
The full story of Jann’s escape from her family and the struggle to overcome the consequences of her abuse is long, complicated and often painful. Ultimately she was successful, but it was not an easy road. One of the results of the process was Jann’s coming to greatly appreciate the traditional folk tale “The Ugly Duckling”, which she reckoned at its heart was her story. She found her swan family in the end. I am so grateful to have been a part of it.
Songs of a Swan
2025
These songs span a range of years and eras in Jann’s life. For the most part I don’t know exactly when they were written or recorded. They are all what I suppose we would today call “lo-fi” recordings. Basically, they consisted of Jann sitting in her house in front of a recorder with a microphone, playing her guitar and singing.
I am reasonably certain the first track, Sunshiny Day, was recorded on a mini-disc recorder sometime near the end of 1999. I found the track on a mini-disc and it was dated 1999. The other two tracks I found on a cassette tape, which I speculate was created sometime in the mid-1980’s. It was essentially a practice tape, which I found with a several others in a storage box. After all the places those tapes had been stored, attics and basements and who knows where else, I feel very lucky they are in as good of condition as they are.
I’ve done my best to edit the tracks and remove noise from them. Still, they are what they are – unpolished monophonic recordings in a sometimes noisy environment made without professional equipment. Also, amazing songs filled with heart and feeling. They are my favorite music in all the world, despite the fact that I often cry when listening to them. Or, possibly, because of that.