Niagara: A Tender Song for a Grieving Heart
- Spirit Voyage
- Jul 6, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 2
Since the release of, “And Now He Has Wings” , Ram Dass gave life to music that ripples from the most profound places of a human heart. Songs that were born from the life changing experience of losing a beloved child, lyrics that talk to us about the mystery of life, death and all the colors in between.
Allowing grief to flow to the sea is the heartbeat of "Niagara," a gentle folk ballad that ripples with anger and grief. Singer-songwriter Ram Dass punctuates the song with icy strings and flowing guitars, much like its namesake’s cold waters. Mourning the loss of his newborn son with a heartbreakingly sincere delivery, the weight of such a tragedy unfolds in this deeply tender song.
Can you share with us what this song represents for you?
“Niagara was pure catharsis. After my son passed, I tried to hold my family together, stay happy, and try to find my happiness in life, but I didn’t have a lot of space to feel upset or angry at his loss. This song is my declaration to the Universe/God/whatever you want to call it, that what happened wasn’t ok and also a cry for help. I found out that there was a problem with the pregnancy at Niagara Falls, so I decided to direct all of that feeling at the water itself.”
What has been your experience sharing these songs that come from a very personal immersion to your own inner world?
I have produced music for others for so long, helping to guide music into the world— I already knew that it was a vulnerable process but I had never made something quite so personal as this. Ultimately, the fear of making the music was a lot worse than how I have felt releasing it. Now that the songs are done and I feel so good about them, in that they are accurate to how I felt and what I needed to express, as well as how beautiful I feel they are, I feel so much less anxious about getting them out into the world. I feel like a weight has been lifted. It feels like I now have an open door to writing more personal songs.
On your last EP, you dedicated a song to water, “The Water Poem”. Is Niagara related to that song?
Definitely. The first EP ‘And Now He Has Wings’ was supposed to be a sort of omniscient or birds-eye spiritual view of incarnation, birth, and death. This time, I wanted to express the human side, which includes the pain, the fear, the anger, the grief. Both “Niagara” and “The Water Poem” are about the same thing, just from different perspectives.
You previously mentioned “Niagara” was an expression of anger towards life and also a cry for help, can you tell us more about this?
In recovering from my son’s death, I put on a happy face and kept trying to find joy and peace, but an essential component was missing, which was to actually acknowledge that the circumstance was awful. This song was my need to say that I was in pain and that everything felt overwhelming and in a sense, unfair. I needed to vent the grief and anger and to express that I did my best but felt like I was getting swept out to sea as I was trying to help my family and all of the mental health issues that came up for everyone in the process.
It feels like you have created a very empathetic relationship with your audience through sharing your story with these songs. How does this emotive layer changed your way to relate with your listeners?
I’m not sure anything has changed in how I’m trying to relate, I just feel like there is an open dialogue now that has a tangible story and context now. I just want to keep making beautiful music that allows people to feel more, feel more connected to others and less alone. I just want to keep expressing my own humanity and hopefully make it safer for others to be able to feel their own humanity.
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