Seafarer Press | Elizabeth Alexander, composer

The lyrics and music of Life Is Not a Garden were composed with high school students from St. Paul's Community of Peace Academy.  About this collaboration, composer Elizabeth Alexander writes:

"No matter how many times it happens, I am always surprised - though not always pleased - when life suddenly veers off into an unforeseeable direction. This journey into the unexpected often occurs when creating music, as I was reminded while composing this piece.

High school chorus members at Community of Peace Academy had struggled for several weeks to come up with a concept for a new piece of music they would be premiering. The students shared many concerns about injustice, poverty, war and prejudice. They felt strongly about the importance of family, community, forgiveness and acceptance. But how could those sentiments become a meaningful and coherent song?

I finally brought the choir a draft I thought was promising, with a central theme that would tie their ideas together. Upbeat. Positive. Calypso-ish.

"It is a garden. It is a menagerie. There are flowers here and weeds, each has gifts and each has needs, and a lifetime full of seeds... Inside our garden. In our menagerie. Whatever it may be, it is our family. It's the community that we call home."

"It's not bad or anything," a skinny young man was saying, trying to be tactful. "But it's just not what I would sing about, personally."

Another student was more direct. "The people in my life always be fighting, disrespecting, you know, judging you. But this song is like 'be happy 'cause everything's fine'. And that's not real life."

I tried not to think about how much time I had left to compose this song. It's about the process, I told myself. If the process has integrity, then so will the finished product.

"I hear what you're saying," I said. "But if the garden metaphor won't work, what will? What is life like for you?"

"It's not like anything," came an impatient reply from the back. "Life is just life."

This was not going well. After another ten minutes of faltering communication, I finally threw my hands up into the air. "Okay, I gave this my best shot, and it looks like I got it wrong. You're going to have to help me out here."

"I don't know," sighed one girl. "But life is not a garden, sunny and bright."

"Okay," I said slowly, "So what else is life not like?"

Suddenly, miraculously, here was a question they could answer.

Two days later, I showed up with a different sketch. Blues-inflected. Latin rhythms. Edgy. As I sang through the chorus, something in the room woke up. Here was their real world, with all of its complications and confusion. On the way out, one student gave me a thumbs up. "You rock," he said.

Still, I had my work cut out for me. "Life is not a Garden" was significantly harder to compose than the song I'd originally envisioned. Opening with disillusionment rather than affirmation, the song journeyed through anger and betrayal, which meant that I had to pass through those places, too. As I looked for a way to keep the song from sinking into despair, I was reminded of how slim hope can sometimes seem.

By the time I had completed "Life is not a Garden," I was completely exhausted. And grateful. By insisting that their song offer a darker, more complex view of the world, these young people took me to an emotional and creative place I would not have gone by myself. And as I watched these insightful singers learn this piece together, I was reminded again that if life is going to go veering off in unforeseeable directions, it is best to have companions on the journey."

- Elizabeth Alexander, April 2005