After the storm, the sound of hope, of release, of pain
Harvey has unleashed different kind of flood — one of catharsis and inspiration via local and national songwriters
It was at the end of a set by Bling St., an experimental Houston duo, when the waves of joy and release, simmering impatiently through ’80s covers and striking original songs, spilled out into the crowd at Leon’s Lounge.
Members Stoo Gogo and Luis Cerda invited the night’s other performers — synth-pop duo Space Kiddettes, souful heartthrob Christian Alexxander — back onstage for a group run-through of the 1980s song “Let the Music Play.” “But when the music changed/
The plan was rearranged,” went the words to Shannon’s freestyle classic. They felt all too fitting in the wake of Houston’s post-storm recovery.
Suddenly, the scene turned into a dance-off. Audience members and performers intermingled in the small area below the stage. They vogued. They twirled. They bent and snapped. Even I was pulled into the mix for a few steps and turns. The song’s refrain — “Let it
play!” — echoed through the room like a command. It felt good, the confluence of energy and goodness and living. It felt like the Houston I’ve always loved.
Music isn’t going to clean out flooded homes or repair roofs or replace family photos and personal belongings. There are still thousands of people in shelters. And as the unaffected move on, they also forget. The disparity becomes a whole new problem.
But the right song can, even if just for a few minutes, provide solace and hope. And even inspire you to strike a pose.
If music provided escape and release after the storm, then it became a lifeline of sorts for some Houstonians as it was happening. Coldplay wrote a country song called “Houston” that the band debuted, ironically, onstage in Miami after canceling a show at NRG Stadium because of the oncoming hurricane.
Shellee Coley, a musician based in Conroe, was watching footage of people being rescued across TV and Facebook when inspiration struck. She was at home with her mother, sister and children and says it came “out of so much desperation.”
“This woman got off a lifeboat, and someone was trying to help her and sort of hug her, and she said, ‘Please don’t try to hug me. Because if you touch me, I’ll fall apart. I’ve been trying to be strong for my babies.’ It was a constant theme I saw with parents, saying they were trying to hold back emotions and also in shock from losing everything at the same time,” Coley says.
She wrote and recorded a song called “Tonight” on her iPhone, even as Hurricane Harvey was still torturing the city. Coley calls it her “boat.” It’s just her voice and a guitar, the eye in a storm of pain and uncertainty.
You can almost feel the lyrics and delivery crackling with raw emotion.
“Usually I write songs after pain. I don’t write in the middle of it like that. It just kind of poured out of me,” she says. “It was maybe a 15-minute process.”
The song is a collaboration with Travis Reed of Cypress, whose The Work of the People set the song to images from the storm. It struck an immediate chord and is now at almost 100,000 views and more than 1,600 shares on Facebook.
“My hands are shaking, my faith is dry
And I don’t know where else I can look for light
Somebody told me that Jesus saves
But what if there is no God, and I got no words to pray?
Somebody holds me, and I might cry
And that’s the last damn thing God needs tonight.”
Though she has released three full-length albums and played countless shows, this is the most visible thing Coley has done to date as a musician. It’s a dynamic that incites mixed feelings.
“It is pure because there was no thought of, ‘I hope this goes viral,’ ” she says. “It’s all very overwhelming. I don’t know how to feel about any of it, actually. I guess I hope people see a little bit of themselves and a little bit of God, without feeling any pressure to feel either of those things. I’m not even particularly religious. I just want people to feel love.”
Most musicians, as Coley says, choose to create after they’ve gone through the experience. Several Houston performers have since channeled their emotions into song.
Pop band Polaroid Summer goes triumphant on “Eye of the Storm.” Singers Calef Bañuelos and Ektor David Avellaneda urge people to do more than offer thoughts and prayers during “What You Gonna Do.” Mango Punch! singer Walter Suhr celebrates the city’s compassion with “Because of the Storm.”
Julianna Banks spent time delivering supplies, mudding out houses, pitching in at shelters and baking for volunteers and victims. She also engaged fans with a few Facebook Live streams.
She was in her bedroom in Spring, safe and dry, when she was struck by the spirit that has generated so many localized hashtags in the past few weeks (#houstonstrong, #hoUSton).
“All my house had was a roof leak. About three minutes away, the houses had 4 to 5 feet of water,” Banks, 17, says.
“I had been thinking about the flooding and how beautiful and awe-inspiring it is that so many people were coming together to help those affected, and lyric ideas just popped into my head. There was so much raw kindness.”
Banks wrote “Texas Strong” in about an hour.
“The water is rising, but we’re built to last
That rain is falling, like nothing years past
Yes, we’ve been losing too many things now
But we won’t let our loss tear us down … “Yeah, we’re holding, holding on
And we’re staying, staying Houston strong
Staying Texas Strong.”
The song is being used by the Texas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, which includes 700 congregations across East Texas, in a national hurricane-relief campaign.
But perhaps more important — and just like so many cottoncandy wigs and disco dance breaks — it’s giving somebody, somewhere a soft place to fall.
“I think music heals people because it shows them that they’re not alone. Someone else has felt the same way they’re feeling and got through it,” Banks says. “Sometimes music understands us better than people can. That’s why it’s so powerful. Because it’s vulnerable and emotional.”