I’ll be straight with you dear reader, as I often am. I was initially going to pass on this single and future album track ‘Sanctuary’ by Rebekka Karijord because it is at least partly concerned with ‘climate change’, which I have never bought into and am not going to, period. And to be honest I’m tired of arguing over the subject. In my opinion far too many people have allowed very rich carbon businessmen to preach this nonsense for too long under the guise of ‘scientific evidence’ that is not.
But I relented because she wraps up climate change into a wider reaction to the destruction of nature, which I do get hot under the collar about, whether that is manifested in the elimination of species or the elimination of forests. And I was sucked into that position by listening to Nightwish’s 2020 album ‘Human : Nature’ and by the video they put out in advance of it, in conjunction with the World Land Trust Partnership
Just so you know where I’m coming from this is a truncated version of it, the song ‘Ad Astra’:
Right, so now I’ve established my credentials, ‘Sanctuary’ is, she says, one of those songs that “wrote itself”, for her seven and 10 year old daughters, and it reflects an “aching sorrow” for their future.
Musically, the song hangs on a simple woodwind sound initially – I’m not sure what the instrument is and it might even be a synthesised sound – but it is very effective in painting the scene, which is an unsettling one.
And it becomes even more so as the theme develops into one of intertwining synthesised choral voices under a two-tone sound that could be a passive emergency services siren. Moreover her soft, almost detached vocal delivery fits it perfectly.
It is very well constructed and eminently sync-able for all manner of geographic or historical films or television programmes.
And I can’t find fault with the multiply (adverb, not verb) repeated lines:
“We had it all/ our Sanctuary’s broken”…
…which could be applied to all manner of scenarios, including, say, the closing down of ‘sanctuary cities’ in the United States.
But I am uncomfortable with these lines:
“Will you ever dare to have a child?”;
“Or has the ocean reached your doorstep?”;
“and the sun turned hostile”?
I ask an open question:
What right have any of us to scare the living daylights out of children as we do with nightmare speculation on their future demise and of any children they might have? We have created the most paranoid generation in recent history.
I was a small child during the worst years of the Cold War but no-one – ever – forced the idea of me being torched into nuclear dust down my throat. I handled the threat in my own way and carried on.
And guess what? We’re still here.
Would it not be better, if you believe in those climactic scenarios, to create songs instead that encourage our and their positive, proactive efforts to allay them as best they can?
The press release tells me “‘Sanctuary’ tries to imagine a path forward for those of us who cannot bear the effects of climate change.”
But it doesn’t. Instead it describes a horrible, barren death for her children.
Rebekka’s album ‘The Bell Tower’ comes out on 25th April on Bella Union and I hope to find a greater expression of hope and positivity within it to go with her undoubted talent.
Find her on:
Website: https://rebekkakarijord.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RebekkaKarijord
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rebekkakarijord/
Photo credit: Martina Hoogland Ivanow.