The Day You Held Me

Back in 2003, I was in the very early stages of writing the album that would become "Love Is On My Mind". We had recorded two songs, "My Soul's Sweet Song" (which was never released, but I think will end up being revamped for Soulkiss!) and "(I'm Not) Colorblind (which ended up being saved for "The Muse"). I had a gig in Lousiana at Grambling State University for Black History Month and hit the road.

While doing a radio there, we were discussing my favorite writers, particularly Ntozake Shange. The radio announcer informed me that the Drama Department was doing a production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide while I was there. And of course, I went. Having read the book (or cheoreopoem), but never seen it live before, I was rivted.

Hearing the words: I found God in myself...and I loved her: at the conclusion of the play did something to me. I went back to the hotel and remembered an experience with a father figure, the first time I had ever been embraced by a father. Having grown up without my father, the moment was a pivitol one for me. The fusion of those experiences made me pick up my pen....and The Day You Held Me flowed seamlessly. I was finished in roughly 10 minutes. I hit the road next morning and went right to the studio and sang it for Dale Babb, my collaborator, who picked up his guitar and heard the music in my head. It set the framework for the album that would become Love Is On My Mind.

But the story doesn't end there. I believe that songs have lives of their own. They unfold. As time goes on, the song morphs and expands. We have to live the song.

Fastforward to last year and I met someone I could best describe as a cosmic twin. During our first conversation, they said "I remember you". It was otherworldly. And my process of remembering began.

A few months later, I was heartbroken. I felt the greatest sorrow I have ever experienced. I was dismembered, so to speak.

I went to the library, angrily looking for Terry McMillan's Disappearing Acts and instead found The Passion of Mary Magdalen by Elizabeth Cunningham. I had never heard of this book before, but something in me said that I needed to get it.

I took it home and began to read and found my story. It was all about remembering. Isis re-membering Osiris. Mary Magdalen finding and losing her cosmic twin Jesus...then finding him again...and the process of re-membering YOURSELF...

There were days I wanted to die. And this book kept my heart pulsing. It gave me my will to live. It made me remember the song. The song. The song.

It made me put my experience into a perspective....that maybe it wasn't about the other person, but rather about what they brought to my life to be a part of the story: that I needed everything to fall apart so that I could get to the core. The core of that onion. So that I could get back to the song....the song that I had wanted to forget....

So when I moved to NY and we formed SOULKISS, this was one of the first songs of my solo career that I wanted to put into the show...It means so much to me....I hope that it makes you...remember....