Song Highlight: Hopeful

Ever have those times when you hear a song, and it is just the right song at just the right time? It happens to me a lot, actually. Many times, the song is as yet unrecorded and fleeting, making me wish the artist would hurry up and record their next project already, so I can have the song in my collection! Fortunately, in the internet age, we have things like YouTube to help keep the songs available to hear at will. From time to time here on the blog, I’ll be posting songs that strike me, officially recorded or ‘only’ online. Some might be new, some might be old – I’m all about sharing music I love here.

Today, it’s all about really new songs. Cary Cooper started a series in 2012 called RealWomenRealSongs. She enlisted a bunch of female songwriters to write a song a week for a year, aided by a new prompt each week. The series is now in its second year, and the artists taking part are: Cary, Honor Finnegan, Ellis, Tracy Grammer, Tylan Greenstein, BettySoo, Terri Hendrix, Alice Peacock, Anna Vogelzang, Hope Dunbar, Megan Burtt, Emily Dunbar, Lucy Wainright Roche, Natalie York, Connie Mims, Annika, Dorit, Ingrid Elizabeth, Lisa Markley, Sara Hickman, Kate Hearne, and Stephanie Macias. Also participating are visual artists Ginger Fowler and Jeff Donahue.

I’m posting two of the videos here today, but I urge the reader to go the RealWomenRealSongs YouTube channel and be prepared for some long listening. There’s a lot of great music on there, and more is added daily. The lyrics to each song are included with the song’s description, something I greatly appreciate.

Week 8’s prompt was ‘hopeful’. Cary posted her ballad for it, and it just slayed me. Right song, right time, etc etc. It’s a melancholy call out to a love that has gone out of reach. And yet despite that, there is hope for love’s remembrance and maybe even return.


Ellis’s offering for this week on the same prompt is both concerned and determined. Inspired by seeing Al Gore speak about climate change at the 2014 Folk Alliance International conference. This is a sung/spoken entreaty for us to come together and realize our commonality, that we are all in this together and unity is needed to move forward to a better future. Hopeful, indeed. After all, there is no Planet B – this is our only home. I also really appreciate not only how clearly Ellis says all of this in the song, but how visibly it is also written in her expressions as she performs this.

Well done, women. Well done. I am looking forward to hearing and highlighting more!

2 thoughts on “Song Highlight: Hopeful

  1. I have been listening to RealWomenRealSongs for two years and it is one of those jewels that more people need to know about. I’ve mentioned it in my blog (james1207.blogspot.com) and have seen several of the artists live. It would be a monumental undertaking, but here’s hoping compilations can be sold from this project. I look forward to reading your blog. Great posting! — James Taylor, Dallas

    • Thanks so much for reading and commenting, James! Glad to know that the RealWomenRealSongs series has such good reach 🙂 I agree that more people should be tuning in and hopefully the audience will indeed keep growing.

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