Elizabeth Sullivan’s songs seem to come from deep within her heart and soul, and she pours a large measure of herself into every effort. She is extraordinary. Listening to her, you feel she has let you into her thoughts and feelings without reservation. Elizabeth’s songs tug at your heart and compel you to listen. There are no clichéd hooks, no overused gimmicks, and no unnecessary tricks. You won’t find yourself simply singing along to her songs. Instead, you will find that you need to go back to them, again and again, to take an amazing emotional journey with a songwriter who truly has something to say.
New York based singer/songwriter Elizabeth Sullivan turned to music since the age of six. First the piano, and then the guitar, accompanied her singing, which was something “instinctual, like breathing,” for Elizabeth. Choir experiences and voice lessons, eventually led her to the Ithaca School of Music to study vocal performance.
However, a tragic revelation that would come to mark the most significant moment in the young songwriter’s life, forced her to leave her schooling behind and to immerse herself deeper into music. Following her mother’s passing, Elizabeth rediscovered the musical escape she had so cherished as a child. She wrote intensely and finally began sharing her music with the world.
Currently finishing her Master’s degree in Music Education at Hunter College, Elizabeth Sullivan has already released a series of stunning singles. Her latest being “We Have A Dream”. Produced, Recorded and Mixed at Caelum Music Production, LLC by Dante Lattanzi, the song was written by Bruce David Martin and Tara Somerville, in honor of those who have risked or lost their lives seeking a safer life for their families and themselves.
This balance of personal perspective and universal principles is found throughout “We Have A Dream” and creates a heartening sense of being inspired and uplifted. By and large, the song is a pondered, ruminative, and excellently written throwback singer-songwriter-like composition. Apart from the contemplative narrative, the focus here is on Elizabeth Sullivan vocals and the organic-sounding instrumentation that creates a warm, enveloping atmosphere around her.
Elizabeth’s nuanced voice and poised diction allows for the carefully chosen words of wisdom to make their way to you through carefully arranged music. She avoids overt exhibitionist forms of singing. Instead her voice – intelligent, smoothly mellifluous, and effortlessly warm – makes the song eminently inhabitable for the listener.
“We Have A Dream” is adequately equipped to dispense life lessons, and in a sense, that is what it does throughout, performing a tender ennobling of the human heart. It’s refreshing to hear the song’s emotions and ethics expressed without screeching and wailing, but in gentle persuasive tones. Elizabeth Sullivan’s voice offers a remedy and a better way in finding true contentment in our hearts.
Bruce David Martin and Tara Somerville deliver profound and insightful lyrics, well-aimed warnings, and sharp, focused remedies to unjustly, discriminatory and oppressive behavior. Bruce and Tara contemplate the global issues in both a realistic and philosophical manner. They get their message across with lyrical passages that could easily pass for straight poetry or factual wisdom, even if there was no melody attached.
“We have a dream and we can live it,” writes Bruce and Tara in the opening lines, continuing: “We have a whole wide world just yearning to be free. We have a heart and we want to share it. All the hatred and the lies, we gotta put it all aside.” These are especially worthy thoughts in today’s divisive climate. Eschewing any cryptic astuteness, Bruce and Tara’s songwriting style, offers a chance to settle into the lyrical sagacity of the song and be ready to absorb it.
“We Have A Dream” is a finely-crafted masterpiece of direct, straightforward lyric and songwriting, from Bruce David Martin and Tara Somerville, culminating in clear-cut passages, allowing anyone the ease of comprehension, to deeply ponder what they’ve just heard. It’s a powerful reminder that a song depends on all its elements – the music, the lyrics, the performances, and the production – for its maximal effect.
Top quality artists the caliber of Elizabeth Sullivan, don’t need to have their music over-produced to deliver their messages, or grab audience attention, and producer Dante Lattanzi demonstrates expertly what to put in and leave out of “We Have A Dream”. So although this gently impelling song slips along smoothly, as it uplifts your soul, I’ll guarantee by the end you’ll be foot-tapping and you won’t even know it.
The cascading rhythm, enlightening lyrics, and flowing melody of “We Have A Dream”, washes over us, bathing us in its sparkling splendor so that we emerge from the world’s troubled waters cleansed, and transported momentarily to embrace a moment of time and space filled with peace and love, thanks to the songwriting team of Bruce David Martin and Tara Somerville.
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