One Song
Inspired by my own family story of migration from Eastern Turkey to London, I wanted to make an artwork about how songs are carried across borders and yet remain firmly rooted in the place they were first sung.
As a child, I remember hearing my grandmother repeat a line from a song over and over again "I am on a long and narrow road". At the time, I was irritated that she only seemed to remember this one line.
Years later I realised the significance of the song to her: by singing it, she was transported to the country and home she had left behind. This is the essence of One Song.
I have made this work with women who were born outside of the UK. They shared their songs and the deeply personal stories connected with them with generosity and openness of spirit.
Each contributor was asked the same question, "can you sing me a song that takes you back to the place you first called home".
Kadir Karababa
Familiar songs take us back to our earliest years, and do it quickly. In 2009, a Czech-American neuroscientist, Petr Janata, ran a study that proved that reactions to pieces of familiar music happened in the same part of our brains as the processing of our sense of self.
"We form very strong memories for the music", he explained. "Think about when you’re singing to yourself and not producing any sound too... we can establish these music memory traces so strongly. There are so many associations formed with the contents of other memories, and music serves as a really effective retrieval cue."
A song can transport you back decades, across many miles. A song can be a means of seduction as well as a sedative, a dagger to the heart, a buoy, an escape hatch. A song has a consciousness, almost, a life of its own.
Adapted by Jude Rogers from her book, The Sound of Being Human, published by White Rabbit/Orion, 2022
