I’m still pinching myself every morning since receiving the news about my place in The London Marathon, and I have to keep the magazine by my bed as a reassuring reminder that it wasn’t just a dream, but this blog isn’t going to focus solely on my running ambition; it’s about another passion of mine too….singing.
I spoke in my other blog about bucket lists, because running the London was always high up on mine, but another aspiration is to one day go storm chasing through tornado alley. When I finally had the chance to put a band together in 2009, we went through the usual lengthy task of deciding on a name. Although a challenging process, it’s a good litmus test for band compatibility and agreeableness! Naturally we passed that one with flying colours, but It wasn’t until after I’d suggested the name ‘Chasing Storms’, that I began to make the connections between the obvious ambition, and the more subliminal influences that inspired it. Joining the dots between them created a thread that stretched all the way back to early childhood, and a little motion picture you may be familiar with…The Wizard of Oz.
Back in the day when we only had three channels on the TV and filming budgets were low, you could rely on the same classic movies being reeled out over again during the holidays. Alice in Wonderland and The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe foretold the presence of Easter, while Christmas was often heralded by the arrival of Julie Andrews in one of her many guises and of course, the extraordinary Miss Judy Garland and a little black dog called ‘Terry’.
There is something undeniably enchanting about The Wizard of Oz, and it hasn’t lost any of its sparkle since MGM re-created the 1900 L. Frank Baum novel in 1939. I don’t need to list it’s many industry accolades, but for me, every time I see it, I’m just as gripped with wonder, excitement, fear and anticipation as I was the first time over thirty years ago.
As well as the glorious costumes, eye-popping technicolor and fantastical sets, I was completely seduced by the marriage of Harold Arlen’s songwriting and Judy Garlands inimitable voice, and I’m not the only one. Many singers since have recorded their own love affair with ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’. Eva Cassidy’s version is well known and has an originality all of it’s own, but more recently I discovered Melody Gardot. Her own songwriting is exquisite, and although her rendition of SOTR is fairly ordinary in comparison to Eva, the tale she tells of how the film came to influence her is really very beautiful. I’ve been asked to sing it several times myself, (as recently as last weekend at a Dinner Party in fact) and I always like to stay as true to Judy and Harold as I can, but it was at a memorial service in November 2011 when the real effect of the film struck me.
As usual, I had not planned my outfit to sing in, (what’s the point…us girls always change our minds at the last minute anyway) but as I walked hurriedly out of the door I noticed that, without thinking, I had donned a pair of Blood Red Shoes from my wardrobe. Was I subconsciously playing Dorothy, or Judy, or both!? (Incidentally next month will be the fourth successive year singing at the same service, this time with Eva’s ‘Fields of Gold’).
And so, inspired by Hollywood Twisters, a lifetime ambition, the awesome power and unpredictability of Mother Nature and the heady mixture of danger and excitement, ‘Chasing Storms’ is the living out of my own technicolor dream. In the final scenes, the revealing of the Wizard is a disappointing moment and a huge anti-climax for the audience and the characters. Many messages come through the story at this point, but the most significant one for me here, is that my singing dream is not a lone destination with a singular defining goal, but that dream is a journey, a brightly coloured path, the lessons to be learnt, and the amazing friends I’m making along the way.
The Road to Kansas 