May - music and musings.

I really love singing competitions, massive hype or not. I also love the young artist  Ruti Olajugbagbe who won this year's The Voice Uk competition.  Click the link above to hear her version of The Cranberries 1992 debut single "Dreams."

I can't stop listening to her version of this song, or the original version enough right now. I also can't stop watching Ruti's face as she sings. She makes my heart glad and hopeful that young people will continue to work in different ways, to make the world a kinder and more compassionate place.

These beautiful lyrics and amazing voices of these two human beings are with me as I move around the world everyday. It was written by lead singer of The Cranberries Dolores O’Riordan and lead guitarist Noel Hogan, Dolores died this year in January aged only 46. Although she wrote it at age 20 about her first love, it could easily be about a talent or a dream, and this is what I feel when I hear and watch Ruti's version.

In 1994 The Cranberries released Zombies, written by Dolores in a response to the deaths of two children in the Warrington bombing, which took place in March that same year. Anti-war protest songs are sadly nothing new, artists and musicians will be creating and responding to terrible tragedies and injustice forever more.

But I'm so grateful to them.

We need the artists to help us see the world differently, to help us remember our beauty, and to help us to imagine other possibilities.