Heather Panton and Denyse Kelly used their experience as survivors of sexual violence to create songs of hope for others who can’t speak up.
Panton explains Cindy Doire spent the past five years working to build the “Chorus of Courage.”
She, Kelly, and three other survivors shared their stories with a songwriter who used their words to create a song. Panton says the songs were sent to male-identified allies. She adds the songwriters and allies have no prior connection to sexual violence.
Panton’s song is called “Burn it all Down” and was written by Doire while Kelly’s is titled “Sweet Little Hummingbird” and was composed by Marcia Chum-Gibbons.
Both women are from Muskoka and work with Muskoka Parry Sound Sexual Assault Services (MPSSAS).
MPSSAS is one of the organizations supporting the idea and Kelly says Lauren Power, executive director, is the one who pushed her to get involved with the project.
“In the beginning, it was just a retreat and one song,” she says but adds it slowly blossomed.
Panton and Kelly spoke to the MyMuskokaNow.com newsroom while preparing to leave for Ottawa in time for an event at the National Arts Centre for International Women’s Day on March 8. The survivor and ally songs will be played live for the first time.
“As survivors, we carry the guilt, even though I was eight years old when this abuse happened,” says Kelly.
She explains that over the past three decades, she’s worked to recover from how her parents treated her, including going through many of the services offered by MPSSAS and even having Power as her therapist.
Panton says she isn’t as far into her healing journey as Kelly is, but both agree that if they heard songs from survivors when they were beginning to understand what they went through, it would have been “unbelievable.”
“There’s just little key pieces in each of the songs that you can connect with,” says Kelly.
In her song, one of the first lines is, “it was not your fault.”
Kelly says her abuse happened when she was young and she believed all she needed to do was get away from the toxic environment. When she did, and her life didn’t change for the better nor did the relationship between her abusers, she was confused. “It sounds so bizarre,” she says.
Panton explains her song is about standing up and saying enough is enough. “When there’s violence you feel alone, you feel very little, you feel like you have no voice,” she says. “This project gave us a voice like I never could have imagined in my life.”
The response songs were created by the allies only using what they heard in the original songs. “It’s their perception of how they would respond to the songs written by the survivors,” explains Panton.
Her response is written by Brad Barr and is called “Shields.”
Panton says one of the lines details how “you’re on your way” once you “stop accepting abuse from men, from government, from you.” She adds Barr also sings about how her story makes him wonder how many others are not told.
Panton cites a statistic from Women and Gender Equality Canada that says “one in three women experienced unwanted sexual behaviour in public which can include unwanted sexual attention or unwanted physical contact.”
She says the government department says around 4.7 million Canadian women have been sexually assaulted by the time they turn 15 years old.
Panton adds so many sexual assaults go unreported for a variety of reasons but one is the belief that “our system is very broken.”
“You’re not alone,” she says. “We’ve got your backs and we’re going to use our voices.”
However, Panton says the conversation must include allies.
“We need people who have not suffered this kind of trauma to stand up and say we’ve got your back, we understand, and we’re going to help you stop this from happening,” she says.
That could be as simple as listening.
The five survivor and five ally songs will be bundled together in an album called “Always by your Side” and released on multiple streaming platforms on March 22.