Memorial and Tribute: An expression of Loss. "Call My Name" and "Lamentare"

I had just been listening to Purcell's Dido and Aeneas, "When I Am Laid In Earth" ('Remember Me!'), because I've always wanted to do something with this music, when I turned on the TV and saw the brother of George Floyd speaking about his brother's murder.  Pretty devastating.  I immediately wrote down "Call My Name", I knew I wanted to use that in the title in a song.  I had just been invited by The Society of Composers and Lyricists to co-write a song ("Anything Disney TV") with composer/songwriter/producer Darren Ellis Smith for their upcoming SONGDEMIC! (June 27, 2020), and brought that title to our write.  Our song, Call My Name, is a Disney Teen Pop song on its surface, but it's really a call-out in the moment of all-time. 


We have experienced unbelievable tragedy in the USA recently. It was for times such as these, both personally and collectively, that I wrote the next "Ave Maria", my memorial/tribute love song to my father, Lamentare. My sister and I were talking, and the subject of how would/could we ever deal with the death of our father when that time came. That discussion haunted me. When I got home, I immediately went to the piano and wrote Lamentarehttp://www.cdbaby.com/cd/PauldAmore2  ; https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/lamentare-full-feat.-lisa/id524173813?i=524174176   It is my personal tribute to the special gentleman and compassionate man who was my father (passed March 6, 2013). Loss--a lot has been written about it, how to deal with it, its part in the Journey of life, the "why" of loss, etc. Take a moment of quiet time, a personal meditation, and listen to Lamentare. I believe the arch of the music can take you to a place of inner peace in that moment as an expression of love and compassion for your loss and that of others, and as a tribute/memorial to those souls that have touched us, and we carry with us ever onward. We want to heal. Pain and loss are a necessary part of life. The song and its experience doesn't change the world in any immediate way. But on the personal level as we each pass along the compassion and empathy it elicits from one-to-another, perhaps such a positive and slow evolution can be a natural part of what is the larger future. That is as those we have lost would want it.