May 08
Well it's been a while since I updated the website, apologies to anyone looking in and finding nothing new. In my defence, I've been up to my proverbial neck though I can't complain, it's been a wonderful 9 months since this site's creation.
Chris and I are currently in the studio putting the final touches on our new album, 'Together Alone'. It's been a great experience creating this CD, from the musicians we've gathered around us to the songs and their sources.
It's such a strange thing where the inspiration for some songs come from; one of the new songs on our album is called 'Take these bones', I was looking through the Amnesty website and came across a fascinating link about comfort women.
Thousands of women, known as ‘comfort women’, were officially commissioned by the Government of Japan from the 1930s through the duration of the Second World War for sexual servitude for the armed forces. The full extent of the sexual slavery system has never been fully disclosed by the Government of Japan though it is thought that as many as 200,000 women were enslaved. To this day, the Government of Japan has refused to acknowledge its responsibility for the crimes committed against former ‘comfort women’.
I found the article both horrific and yet fascinating at the same time but the inspiration behind the song came from the testimony of one of these women; Gil Won Ok, 79, was born in what is now North Korea. When she was 13 she was promised factory work, but eventually found herself in a comfort station in northeast China where she worked as a ‘comfort woman’. Gil caught syphilis and developed tumors during her work as a ‘comfort woman’ and eventually, a Japanese military doctor removed her uterus leaving her unable to bear children.

Gil, who broke her silence in 1998, 53 years after her traumatic experience, recently gave testimony at the European Parliament. Gil said of the need to continue campaigning , “the Japanese Government thinks if all ‘comfort women’ die, it will be buried and forgotten…as long as our next generation knows about it, it will not be forgotten”.

Having been totally inspired by Gil's story and driven by a desire to pass this story on I wrote 'Take these bones' but decided from the outset it shouldn't be a maudling song but have an air of hope and victory about it. With this in mind, we've also arranged a choir part which we will be teaching to and then recording all our vocal workshop women. This will then be mixed onto the album track so hopefully will make it sound even more uplifing. Watch this space to see how we get on!