A Salford artist has recently released her debut single about her great great uncle in World War One.
Anita Joyce has made her professional debut into the music scene with her new single dedicated to lost heroes of war, her double single brought two new tracks on October 13.
One song is an ode to her great, great uncle who was a soldier in World War One as well as a Salford resident, drawing inspiration from her own family history and generations of Salfordians.
When asked about the song, Anita Joyce said: “It may have taken four generations to write this story but I am truly honoured to be sharing A Soldier And A Song.”
Joyce’s great great uncle was named Fredrick Marsden, a Pendleton resident who spent a lot of his time involved in his community and the St Thomas’ Church, the same place where Anita would later perform her music.
She said: “My nana would always talk about her uncle, Freddie, that died in World War One. So she never met him because he died of the 13th of October 1917. And he was 19 years old and she was born in 1922. She was really, really sad that no one from the family had ever been to visit his grave.
“Although my Nana was too ill to sort of come with us, me and my mum and dad went and we found his grave. My Nana’s grandma had had this inscription written on the grave, which was, no morning dawns, no night returns. Honestly, I held these words for 30 years.”
As a young man, Freddie ran off and joined the Lancashire Fusiliers but his mother would end up getting him back home. Later on in his life he would join the Grenadier Guards where he was sent to Ypres, showing his desire to fight for his country in troubled times.
While “I See You” focused on the passing of her great great uncle at war, “Sunshine Leaves” has a story revolving around her friends who passed away. Continuing that theme of remembrance across the record.
She said: “I’d lost four friends and they were quite young. The three of them were work colleagues. I was really having a bit of trouble processing losing them really, I’d generally really, really missed them.
“Then in Scotland, it was autumn and there were all the leaves on the floor and I’m thinking about my friends. And this is how Sunshine Leaves came about.”
Accompanied by Martin Stephenson, a favourite producer of Anita’s and additional instrumentation and vocals from Gary Dunn and Anna Lavigne, Anita created her debut single.
She said: “I’ve got to give all the credit to, you know, Martin Stephenson for his production, his vision for it, how he lifted it.
“He got Gary Dunn to play this lead guitar on it, which Martin arranged, which was incredibly, upbeat and buoyant. And then Anna Levine has done beautiful backing vocals for both the songs with me. They just really raised it into exactly what I wanted, which was a bit of happiness”
When asked about the song, Martin Stephenson said: “Anita, she’s a rainbow person, she sees the bigger picture, she’s a beautiful soul.
“I put the backing track together for her, she wrote the song and then I did the arrangement for the structure and then she came and did her vocals and she did really well, she was very nervous. It’s like she was out of her comfort zone really, but the meaning of the song is everything. The concept and the meaning behind like for her family and her uncle, I think it’s fantastic.”
