Sunlight Coming- An Original
Hello again to my blog where I share the backstories of how I wrote my songs, put together my videos, and survived-but very much enjoyed- college. Today's blog post is about how I started to write my song, Sunlight Coming.
This story started on a bad day in my second semester of college. I had just finished my Music Theory 1 class and had talked to a few friends before walking to my one on one Chinese lesson. Check out my blog about my experience in learning Mandarin Chinese here. I can't remember why, since it's been awhile that I experienced this, but as I walked to my Chinese lesson I remember feeling upset. Maybe it was the conversation I had with my fellow musicians. Maybe I was annoyed that I had to walk half way across campus to practice speaking easy Chinese phrases yet writing complicated characters. Or maybe it was just the dark clouds looming above my head that was affecting my mood.
In my personal lesson of Chinese, we would speak to each other in Chinese while going through words in my textbook. Suddenly, my teacher stopped teaching me and started talking to me in English. This woman is from China, and it caught me off guard that she decided to speak to me in my native language. She must have noticed that I wasn't happy because she told me about her daughter who was having a hard time in college and about students who get so overwhelmed that they try to commit suicide. Hearing her talk about these things surprised me and made me feel uncomfortable as well. I was moody, but definitely not suicidal! Yet, as I listened to her, I was comforted knowing that she cared enough about me that she would interrupt our private lesson just to make sure that I was alright.
At the end of the lesson, I left the building and pondered on what my teacher had told me as I walked over to my Work Study Job. Thankfully, it wasn't as long of a walk because it had started to sprinkle. While the rain softly fell to the ground, a little tune got into my head and I had the idea of writing a song that could relate to both this weather and my mood. When I entered the building where I would start my shift of my Work Study Job, I took out my phone and recorded myself quietly humming the tune that came to me a moment ago.
For those of you who have read some of my previous blogs, you know by now that I'm Christian, have served a Mission for my church, and have other friends who have done the same. One day later on in the same semester that this new tune got into my head, I received an email from one of my fellow Missionaries serving in New Zealand. At the end of the email were pictures that he took during the week. One of these pictures was filled with sunshine and showed a silhouette of him on his bike. The moment that I saw this picture, the tune of the chorus to my new song popped into my head. Only this time I imagined the tune being played by a guitar. The light in the picture and the guitar playing in my head gave me feelings of hope and comfort!
I was busy with school for quite awhile and even though I was writing other songs such as Peanut Butter and Jam, I had forgotten about this song for awhile. That is, until COVID hit in 2020… One day in the summer of 2020, I came across the lyrics to this song in my music notebook and decided to continue writing it, along with giving it piano accompaniment. I made the piano part sound like a rainstorm and the lyrics describe both a physical storm and a symbolic, emotional storm. When the song was completed, I thought about all the people dealing with so many different hardships because of the pandemic and thought to myself, Other people need to hear this song. I wish I was able to get it onto YouTube sooner when many more people probably needed it, but I'm glad that I have been able to eventually add this song to my YouTube channel. Tomorrow, I will share with you the process I had while putting together that video.
If you haven't already, feel free to watch the video and/or buy the sheet music to the song. If you don't want to buy sheet music, please consider donating to my website. Every bit of money will support me as I make videos, blogs, and sheet music. Remember to check out the other links previously mentioned in this blog and comment below on what you think about this song. Thanks for reading 'till the end!
