DISPLACED DAUGHTER (For the Women of the DRC, Whom I Carry In My Heart Everyday)

Namaste my friends,

I first became aware of the mind-numbing horror in the DRC (I still feel guilt for not knowing sooner) in late 2007, when the Women of the Congo was named V-Day's 2008 Global Spotlight. In the six years since, the Congo has become a full-time focus of the movement and a second home to its founder Eve Ensler, with the establishment of a permanent partnership with Panzi Hospital and the building of the extraordinary City Of Joy. A few weeks ago my friend Karen Emerson, Artistic Director of Children's Peace Theatre, asked if some youth and I could perform the song Here To Love, which I wrote for the play Passage: A Moving Experience, at CPT's event in association with Congo Solidario for the International Day Of Peace.  I said yes right away but soon felt that that wasn't enough -- that these women had meant too much to me for the last six years to simply recycle something that I'd written for a different purpose.

I asked Karen if we could do an additional song. She said "Sure, which one?" I said "One I haven't written yet." I kept thinking about the young girls I would be singing with, teenagers, and then about their Congolese counterparts. These women and girls haunt my heart, my blood, my dreams. When you have heard their stories, you cannot unhear them. You cannot unsee the savagery. The truth is loud. It is deafening. Maybe that is why the world feigns deafness?  You can ignore it, but you cannot unknow it. I believe that these are the strongest women alive. I have so, so many times looked at the face of a Congolese girl and thought "She is my sister or my daughter... just displaced. She could be mine." The song below comes from those moments.

Peace, Passion & Progress,

Tanisha xo

DISPLACED DAUGHTER
Music, lyrics, keyboards, drum programming and all vocals by Tanisha Taitt.
Written and recorded September 18, 2013
LISTEN HERE

Hold me -- somebody told me

And now there's no escaping from her face

She was only barely more than a baby

When terror paid its visit to this place

This was her home, now there is no one

Mama, papa, are long gone... but no one knows where

The soldiers came and took them, shook them down

They are no more, she's alone

Men kick down the door again

Chorus:

She could be mine, she could be mine

It's only circumstance that makes things so

She could be mine, she could be mine

They could've led her to the slaughter

She could be my displaced daughter

Hold tight, it lasted all night

Minutes turn to hours, turn to dead

Crawling, barely breathing and bawling

And every touch exploding in her head

Nothing spoken, he leaves everything broken

Every moment screams a sigh of "More"

The blood, like ink, tells stories on the floor now

Wore her down, bound to be tossed and lost

And drowned and found again

Chorus:

She could be mine, she could be mine

It's only circumstance that makes things so

She could be mine, she could be mine

They could've led her to the slaughter

She could be my displaced daughter

Mine... she could be mine

It's only circumstance that makes it not so

She could be mine, she could be mine

Turn the channel from your tabloid fodder

Look at her, my displaced daughter

*****

©2013 Bloodsongs