Songwriter to pay tribute to Acton’s ‘powerful, brave’ role
If you were asked to write a song for the semiquincentennial of the Revolutionary War, what would it be?
If you were asked to write a song for the semiquincentennial of the Revolutionary War, what would it be?
Patriotic? Sentimental? Joyous?
Anna Huckabee Tull, a Acton singer-songwriter, accepted that challenge when the Acton Museum commissioned her to create a piece she will perform for the first time at “The 250th Midnight Ride Celebration” at the museum on April 26.
Tull’s original song, “We Gather Here,” is planned as a “huge surprise and is under tight lock and key,” she says. But she can reveal that the lantern — one of two hung as a signal in the belfry of Christ Church (Old North Church) in Boston on the night of April 18, 1775 — “figures prominently in the deeper message” of the piece.
The title, Tull says, is “fitting, I think, for a story where community has played such a critical role in our history and is currently such a very important concept to us all.”
Inspirations for “We Gather Here” include “the kind of wide-eyed wonder that children bring when they come to the museum and see all of the worn and beautiful objects” and the “idea that history is about not only the extraordinary moments, but all the ordinary moments as well … all the lives who together found courage in the face of a very uncertain outcome,” says Tull.
“I was reminded,” she adds, “that a few people can make a big difference.”
Lisa Krassner, executive director of the museum, says when Tull performed at the museum this winter, “we thought it would be a really exciting opportunity to do something special with her for the 250th.”
Commissioning Tull to write a song, she says, was “a contemporary way to capture our current experiences of the 250th for future generations.”
A ‘meaningful coincidence’
For her thesis at Denison University, where she majored in English, Tull studied the journals of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau, comparing them to their published works.
“I was fascinated by the Transcendentalist era and the idea that so much profound, thoughtful, and expansive energy was focused in such a small geographical space,” she says.
Tull says she has “felt the pull of Acton through the years and across the miles, like so many others who feel the magic and intensity of this place.” She has lived in town for 16 years and is married to Jim Tull, an international conflict resolution specialist.
Speaking of miles, Tull once embarked on a quest during the bicentennial of Thoreau’s 1817 birth. She walked every mile of Acton’s public and private streets, roads, and lanes — 136 miles total — avoiding only Route 2.
An award-winning singer-songwriter and composer with a master’s degree in spiritual psychology and applied psychology from the University of Santa Monica, Tull has been a life coach for 25 years. She is the author of “Living the Deeper YES” and has produced five musical albums.
“We Gather Here” will be the 250th song Tull will record. “Such an incredible, and to me, meaningful coincidence!” she says.
Her commissioned works — she runs a business called Custom Crafted Songs — have been performed by villagers in Africa and children’s choirs from Australia to Singapore; at weddings, christenings, and services of remembrance; and for people dealing with serious illnesses.
‘Bam!’
Did the writing of the new song come easily? “It was a bit slow going until I decided to dust off my old guitar, the one I haven’t played in years,” Tull says, “and then — bam! The song came zooming out of me.” Creating it, she adds, has been “one of the great honors of my songwriting life.”
Tull says she got “choked up” while working on the piece because “when you really stop and think about it, it’s a very powerful, brave thing that happened in our town 250 years ago.”
She will perform the song at the museum celebration with pianist Gail Carey, who has made “an exquisite arrangement for it,” Tull says. A recording will be posted on the museum’s website directly after the event.
To learn more about “The 250th Midnight Ride Celebration” at the Acton Museum on April 26, which benefits the museum’s education programs, visit concordmuseum.org/250th/.
