Welcome to the SSV 'Letters' Project
Submit your songs & letters using the form below.
Soldier Songs and Voices has always been, from its very inception, a love letter to the men and women who put their bodies and souls on the line in our defense. It exists, as a very humble thank you to OUR heroes - to all of you - for the freedom and blessings we enjoy as Americans.
'Letters' by Tony Rosario
Many years ago, at the outset of this adventure, I came across some letters written by soldiers and sailors in service who served in Iraq, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. The power in those letters floored me. I asked the Veterans I worked with for more letters. The honesty and the gravity of their situation and their mind-sets was chiseled in those letters. I sat in my basement more nights than I can count with tears running down my face absorbing words that rang like lyrics I could never write in a million years. I could hear the hearts of the committed - the men and women with boots on the sand - and it cut me to the core. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people felt the way these people did, and I didn’t have the words to talk about it.
We put together excerpts from some of those letters with an observation from Yours Truly about that letter, and a song we recorded in my little shop of musical madness that was pertinent to the letter. I was proud of what we put together and, from the outset, we felt like it was a platform that we could explore as a community to spread the word and bring more awareness to the myriad of concerns that Veterans face. We released the project online in 2014. “Letters - A SoldierSongs Take”.
We have set up an online portal so that anyone in our SSV orbit can download “Letters - A SoldierSongs Take” and give it a listen. That’s the study material and here is the project:-) We want to do it again! This time we want to record our Veterans, and our Veterans to write the songs. And this time we want MORE LETTERS!
The plan is this: To write an updated and new version of 'Letters' to take out out to the public as a performance and as a product. Our aspiration is to use 'Letters' as a vehicle to reach more Veterans, and to provide more for the folks we have onboard now. This is going to be a big year for SSV and we want your help.
In the 1st iteration of 'Letters' , we chose several cover songs that were pertinent to the letter excerpt. This time we want to use original music from our Veterans - but the bar is high. This call for your help also comes as a challenge.
An example: In Letters 1--one of the songs that we used was Buffalo Springfields classic ”For What It’s Worth”. Give it a listen - We want you to write songs as good as that one:-) Dig deep, get out the notebooks, don’t be afraid to laugh or cry, put pen to paper and give ‘er hell.
Sounds hard, and it is. Fortunately we’re talking to soldiers - the folks that don’t look at hard things as anything more than just another day at the office.
We want you to WRITE!!!! --SING!!! -- PLAY!!! We're building virtual house for SSV Veterans to furnish. Paint us some pictures and tell us your stories - ya never know who needs to hear exactly what you have to say:-)
As always, we extend a humble and sincere Thank You for all you have done and continue to do. You are our heroes!