Friday's Grief Song, 8.25.23
Homesickness
This weeks song is a first for the weekly grief song, as it’s the first song I’ve featured with no lyrics. And it’s actually two songs as they are listed as two parts of the same composition.
What does the word homesick evoke for you? An dull ache? A longing like a phantom limb or the kind of throb in an old injury that arises only when the barometric changes alerting you to seasons shifting or an incoming weather front?
I first heard this beautiful piece on a massage table in a trailer on a small scale organic farm in rural Whatcom County. I was instantly smitten. As never had such a piece of music sans lyrics filled me with that missing filling. As I was on the table face down, I of course had no idea the names of the back to back tracks were Homesickness Pt. 1 and Homesickness Pt. 2.
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou (Gəʿəz ፅጌ ማርያም ገብሩ; born Yewubdar Guèbrou, 12 December 1923 – 26 March 2023) was an Ethiopian composer, pianist, and nun.
Listen to her rendition of Homesickness, both parts, here
Homesickness Pt. 1 and Homesickness Pt. 2.
Buy her album Éthiopiques, Vol. 21: Piano Solo which features these songs or more of her music like the album Jerusalem here
Enjoy!
Ethiopiques, vol. 21: Emahoy (Piano Solo)
Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou / Buda
Released on: 1963-01-01