Songs We Sing

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The songs we sing in Companion Voices are carefully and lovingly chosen. They come from a range of traditions and belief systems and each visit’s repertoire is chosen to reflect our listeners’ preferences. We always aim to bring a sense of peace, comfort and support to our listeners.

I am a river flowing to the ocean
I am a river passing through this land…
~ Song by Nickomo

The Songs and our Belief System

At Companion Voices we recognise that there are people who hold religious or spiritual beliefs and people who do not. We are here to serve everyone regardless of their belief system and our repertoire reflects this.

Companion Voices’ songs are chosen to create a soundscape that will be comforting, relaxing and undemanding. To this end, they are mostly simple and repetitive, drawn from a wide range of traditions, and may have words in languages unknown to the listeners. This is to allow a sense of being able to ‘go with the flow’, not necessarily needing to engage with decoding meaning. When you contact us to invite us to sing, we will talk with you about any preferences or beliefs you – or the person you’re inviting us to sing for – might have and choose songs from our repertoire accordingly, sharing in advance the meanings of any songs not in English on request if you’d like to be sure they are suitable.

Companions are trained to sing and respond intuitively in the moment. It’s possible for more familiar songs to be woven in, but this is not our main purpose: the singing is not to entertain or ‘cheer up’, but to accompany and honour the person receiving it; not to pull them back towards life and the familiar but to allow them to progress forward knowing they are not alone. We aim to give them a sense that their experience is held and acknowledged by the singers and their voices as they take their leave of life.

A selection of the songs we sing in Companion Voices is available to hear online:

While we were not able to sing at bedsides, we decided to share our full Companion Voices CD here for anyone to download. We’ve chosen to make this a permanent change despite resuming our learning circles and bedside visits – with all necessary care and precautions – when restrictions permit. These songs were recorded by our founder, Judith Silver, in 2017. We’re also offering songs recorded virtually by a group of Companions in the summer of 2020 on our Home Page. We sincerely hope that listening to these voices from the heart was able to provide some comfort over the darkest times of the pandemic and will continue to do so.

Here’s a link to a version of our song ‘Companions’, written by Judith Silver, recorded by Judith and Companions from various local groups on Zoom in the summer of 2020.

Companions:
Please request permission to access the learning files.