Featured June 18: “My Soldier Boy”

 [Sheet music for voice and piano]

August of 2004 was a stormy month.  My son Peter was stationed in Iraq that summer, and had little access to the internet, so I tried to send him a letter every couple of weeks.  In one of those letters, I described the ongoing storm’s grandiose and persistent thunder – how I’d think it was finally finished and then kaboom, it started all over again, just as I imagined the bombing episodes were over there for him. 

The next day, August 20th, it stormed heavily again.  Something prompted me to sit down at the piano and, still thinking about Pete and the atmosphere of war, I began to sing to him (in absentia) what became My Soldier Boy.  Though I wasn’t journaling regularly then, I had taken time to write this much:

 I found another song brewing inside me, sparked Friday during a mighty storm they’re calling a downburst which felled a lot of trees.  Now “My Soldier Boy” is materialized, a song so given that already I think I’ve heard it before – it’s almost like I excavated it rather than composed it…. 

The Music: 

My Soldier Boy has two verses, each followed by the chorus.  The notes for the voice line are not included in the piano part, as some pop music is written; rather the piano is purely accompaniment to the voice. The tempo is fairly slow, in the style of a rock ballad, so even though there are occasional 16th-notes as decorative rhythm, they aren’t very fast.  That said, you should be aware that this is a very pianistic song.  The intro and interludes between verses are important compositional elements that come together for a long, dramatic instrumental ending that combines sentimentality with majesty and low rattles of thunder (or bombs).  Another word to the wise: it begins in the key of B flat and then goes up a half-step to B, which has five sharps.  Thus, be advised that it is not for a beginner!

Vocally, a fairly wide range is required in a medium tessitura.  There are a couple fleeting Fs below middle C, and the highest note is the C-sharp an octave above middle C.  Opportunities for belting exist; to give you an idea, I have imagined Whitney Houston or Celine Dion singing it.

The Lyrics: 

For several weeks I wasn’t able to sing through the song without crying, as the lyrics kept taking me back to the sweetness of Pete’s baby days, to the danger he was now facing daily in Iraq, and to the collection of decisions that had ultimately landed him in a war zone. 

The song begins as my letters often did, progressing from small talk to saving the world, and peppered with questions, little writing prompts for him in case he was ever inspired (or had time) to write back.   There’s one line that came directly from my mother, who prayed fervently for his safety and sanity.  From her Deep Thought position in front of a sinkful of dishes, one evening she remarked to me that by now he would have seen terrible things that would haunt him the rest of his life.  As Pink Floyd pointed out, mothers’ concerns have a way of becoming our own…so her words became this couplet:  If you must see awful things that will haunt you all your days/  I hope it gives you strength to help us change our warring ways.

I am so amazed at and proud of Pete for his many promotions, for qualifying for Special Forces, and for persisting all these years to be able soon to retire from the army; yet, I admit it, I remain stubbornly anti-war.  However, My Soldier Boy is not a protest song, but conveys a universal lament for the fact of war.  For who among us actually loves it, or ever desires to send their children into combat?  The gist of it is in the chorus:

Pete is currently deployed with his SF team in Afghanistan.  This month he turns 35!

Happy Birthday, my soldier boy!  I love you! – Mom