… who sadly passed away last week. 
I’m rather glad now that I encouraged her to get in front of the mic a few years ago!
My mother wasn’t a musician, but rather just a humble and somewhat modest housewife and mother who liked to sing while doing housework. She wrote this song (and others) in her head while simply pottering round the house. I recorded it a few years ago:
Clarinet was played by her brother (my Uncle) in the UK.
That is very beautiful,sorry for your loss.
not my kind of song but she has an excellent voice and the general vibe is sad and melancholy (befitting the sentiment behind the song) as usual, a good production…Kevin
That is so cool, you have that forever. Sorry to hear about your loss. If my mom wrote songs while she was doing housework, I don’t know about it… she’s still around, so I’ll have to ask her. I think it’s fascinating that people would just write songs in their heads who on the surface of it have no business to write songs, but in truth, as human beings, it’s everyone’s business to write songs. At least I think that is true.
Sorry to hear about your loss, what a great tribute to your mom, those words come from the heart and is genuine! Ironic to hear the words “when I contemplate you dying, there are teardrops in my eyes”. This must be very close to your heart. Thank you for sharing!
Hi Ian,
I can’t listen to the song, 'cause I’m at work at the moment, but I would like to express my sincere condolences…
Best wishes,
Wim
Ian,
My condolences, it must be a hard time for you and this is a great tribute. What a beautiful song and to have the ability to carry this forward in your life is a real blessing. Thanks for sharing this it is great to know we are liked enough here to have you share this. I would love to here the story behind how you recorded with your mom and your uncle, the clarinet is great too.
Thanks,
Kenny
Thanks guys, much appreciated. We had a very fitting and somewhat emotional send off for my mum, and in fact also a re-acknowledgement of my dad who passed away some years earlier. I think its fair to say my mum died of a broken heart… she never got over the loss of my father. They lived on an island, Waiheke Island which is a 40min ferry ride from the city I live in, Auckland. Arguably a contender for one of the most beautiful places on Earth. One thing my parents liked to do was sit on their favourite beach, with Fish ‘n’ Chips’ from the local, a bottle of bubbly and watch he sun go down. We paid tribute by doing the same.
This clip was included in an 18 minute presentation at the end of the service - a project that I had painfully labored over for many weeks in preparation for the funeral. It was a long and emotionally gruelling task… going through old photos etc and setting them to music.
I recorded this back in 2008. I was tempted to remix it with my 2013 skill set but it seemed more fitting to leave it as it was ‘captured’ at the time. The first challenge I had at the time was with finding suitable chords to go with her acappella vocal which was initially recorded ‘as sung’. We established a suitable key and then I simply let her sing the song that she’d been carrying in her head. Once I’d figured out some suitable chords I then built up these tracks, in a style which to be honest is really outside of my musical comfort zone! Then, later I got her back in front of the mic to do some proper takes. I then invited her brother via email to play clarinet. Barry, now in his 70’s, has been playing clarinet and sax since he was a kid and still performs regularly with a local jazz band. The clarinet and vocal are the only real instruments in this recording… the rest are VSTi’s.
My condolences Ian. Now we know where your musical talents stem from. The song was beautiful, and nicely arranged.
All the more moving given the backstory. It has a very nice melody 
My condolences at your mum’s passing…
Sorry for your loss Ian, the song is quite moving with the backstory. She had a nice olden style vibrato technique going on, I really liked the clarinet too. Thanks for sharing and I hope you’re doing alright.
Beautiful Ian! Nice arrangement.
Your mother has a nice voice, it reminded me a bit of Annemarie (haven’t heard from her in a long time…).
The clarinet fits well. Great family effort!
Did you record more of her songs?
Cheers,
Wim