This month’s Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity 20 Something Song is How to Sleep In A Stormy Boat by Amy Speace. While seasonally weather perfect, it offers comfort in the current of daily life. Look to Jesus as you discern and navigate your future. Be not afraid. (Image: St. Raphael Church, Springfield, OH.)
“Sally Barris and I got together at her house in Nashville one rainy afternoon a few years back to write a song. She had the title “How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat” and that was all. But it resonated with me as a kind of title for an instructional manual.
I’d learned to sail when I was young and I loved the idea of not just the sea as a metaphor for a churning internal tangle, but the boat itself, the vessel being the metaphor for the body. How to sleep in your own skin when the world around you feels unsteady. And for both Sally and me, we know that we can’t learn to do this alone but with the help of some kind of ‘higher power’, some spiritual otherness. I learned this in my meditation practice. That to connect with something outside of my own ego, to still the mind, is the only way to get successfully through any kind of trouble, which life is just gonna bring no matter how balanced and healthy you are.”
-Amy Speace
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About Amy Speace
Baltimore–born singer- songwriter Speace started her creative career out in the theater. She studied classical acting in NYC after graduating with high honors from Amherst College and spent a few years carving out a life spent rushing from lower east side theater rehearsals to film and commercial auditions to many support jobs which ranged from legal secretary to personal assistant for actress/singer Lainie Kazan. After a spectacular breakup with a boy in a rock band, she bought a cheap guitar and started putting her poetry to music and began appearing at local folk clubs like The Sidewalk Cafe, The Bitter End and The Living Room.
She was discovered by Judy Collins in 2005, releasing her debut in 2006 on Collins’ Wildflower Records, “Songs For Bright Street” to rave reviews. “The Killer In Me” was released in 2009 with NPR comparing her ta young Lucinda Williams. She moved to Nashville from NYC in 2009, releasing “Land Like A Bird” on Thirty Tigers. Her song “The Weight of theWorld”, which Judy Collins has called “one of the best political folk songs I’ve ever heard” was named as the #4 Folk Song of the Decade by NYC’s premiere AAA radio station WFUV.
In 2013, she received the best reviews of her career with”How To Sleep In A Stormy Boat,” a song cycle inspired by Shakespearean characters, winning 4 stars from Mojo Magazine and a feature on NPR’s “All Things Considered”. Her songs have been recorded by Judy Collins, Red Molly, Memphis Hall of Fame blues artist Sid Selvidge and others. (Photo credit: Stacie Huckaba, Nashville TN)
Lyrics
Tour dates
- 8/ 5-6 Songwriting/Performing Workshop @ The Crested Butte Center for the Arts, Crested Butte, CO.
- 8/6 CONCERT @ The Crested Butte Center for the Arts, Crested Butte, CO
- 8/9 7pm CONCERT Denver, CO – Bauer’s Listening Lounge, 1512 Curtis Street, Denver CO.
- 8/10-8/15 Lyons, CO. The Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Song School and Festival
- 9/8 9pm Nashville, TN. The Bluebird Café
- 9/10 8pm Austin, TX – Rock Room Concerts
- 9/11 7pm Dallas, TX – Uncle Calvin’s Coffeehouse
- 10/29-11/1 Songwriter’s Retreat Workshop in Ashland, City TN. To sign up: http://www.amyspeace.com/fall-2015-retreat
- Other dates, click here.
Links
WEBSITE: www.amyspeace.com
SOCIAL MEDIA:
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