Song of The Week: The Need To Believe by Joy Mills | inspired by the poetry of Gabriela Denise Frank

In November of 2012 Bushwick teamed up with Jack Straw Productions to create original music inspired by the Jack Straw Writers Anthology 2012. For this event, each Bushwick artist was paired with one of the writers from the Anthology.  And it was the poetry of Gabriela Denise Frank that inspired Joy Mills to write this song.

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Download the Bushwick Song of The Week

“The Need to Believe” by Joy Mills | inspired by the poetry of Gabriela Denise Frank

Here is what Joy had to say about the inspiration for the tune:

After reading a piece of Gabriela Denise Frank’s prose, I began writing this song as I do many songs, from a perspective of existential wonder. Big questions emerge from small circumstances. From Gabriela’s excerpt, a woman observes a homeless, drunk man passed out in the middle of the sidewalk at midday. She’s struck by the details, how it compares with and reflects off her own life. She wonders about what brought him to this, asleep in the litter of the street, wondering “how little must a person have to not fear losing anything.”

I spend a lot of my time pondering what enigmatic propulsion sets our lives forth to run and unfold. I also get lost in observation, watching another human being in some small moment, wondering about the interior of their story. Every story is unique, or so we’d like to think. There’s something quite beautiful about these solitary tales, each of us containing our very own, humming with the engine of our minds and beating with mysterious hearts.

So I wrote this song trying to express a little bit about my own wonder of who, what and how we are in the simple act of being.

— Joy Mills

For more info about the talented Joy Mills check out her website — joymills.com