"Are You Listening?"
Story by Aspen Wooley | Photos Courtesy Hannah Eyre
Hanna Eyre stands on the corner of Center Street in Provo, singing to nameless passersby. As each one walks past, she hopes they’ll stop. “I want to tell someone else’s story,” she thinks to herself. Hours pass by and she wonders if the chance to ask anyone about their life will ever come. Then, a man who’s sat on the sidewalk for many of her songs stands up and gathers his belongings: a backpack and a worn blanket. When she takes a pause in singing, the man walks up to her and begins to talk. He tells her about his life and Hanna knows she has to tell his story. Now, that dream is being realized!
Hannah is a senior Honors student, majoring in Commercial Music with minors in Sociology and Gerontology. For her Honors thesis, a creative project, Hannah is writing and recording her first full-length album as a solo artist. While she has released music before with her bands, she is excited to be releasing music under her own name, especially since songwriting has always been her passion. The second part of her thesis will be a summary of the process of writing, recording, and mixing the creative project, as well as a lyrical analysis of each track to give more insight into the background, subject matter, and lyric references in the songs.
Music has always been an important part of Hanna’s life, and as long as she can remember she has been singing. Bands and artists inspire her artistically, but her family has always been her biggest inspiration as a musician. Her mother taught her how to play the piano. Her grandpa would hand her stacks of music, and they would spend hours at the piano, working through his arrangements. Reflecting on her beginnings, Hanna shares, “they just made me love music so much.”
Hanna is no stranger to songwriting, writing songs as a missionary in Washington or with her band, the Filibusters. Her work is now culminating in the biggest project she has undertaken, creating an entire album. “When I think of one word to describe this album, I think of perseverance,” she shares. Her own experiences with faith and loss are mixed in with the voices of others, weaving together a story of belief and strength.
Hanna is giddy as she explains the songwriting process. “Bits and pieces of people’s stories are in my mind that could give life to a song. Certain chords feel brighter or heavier, and they create an atmosphere. I am world building through sound.” Stories and emotions are captured in a moment as she brings each song together.
This album’s songs are separated into three categories: creation/confession, reconciliation, and rewriting. Telling someone else’s story is a deeply meaningful work. This category means a lot to Hanna as she is rewriting women’s stories that have historically been written by men. This album lets these stories of faith shine through in the voices of those who experienced them.
The overall message of this album is that religion and life do not need to be separate. Hanna believes that faith and our secular experiences are all connected. “Everything can be drawn back to God, to faith, to hope, to something bigger than just our small lives here.” Those seeking to find their place in faith or to better understand their relationship with God can find a medium for expressing those feelings in this album. Hanna herself is seeking to understand her relationship with God, getting closer through creating something so dear to her. “Creating kind of goes into all the different reaches of my own faith and the faith of people I’ve met. It’s helped me to see how God feels about his children and how divine that stewardship of creation is.”
Although this album is full of religious themes, the songs don’t often explicitly mention God. “The principles I’m representing most are faith and dependence on something other than yourself. Definitely on God, but in some cases other people. Just faith in the fact that things work out,” Hanna explains. This dependence and faith are expressed beautifully in her album, teaching lessons of change and hope. Other songs tell stories of familial relationships, such as her grandmother’s journey through life. This entire process reveals the hope that Hanna finds in faith. “There are a lot of themes of repentance and acceptance. Of being able to realize that, even though we ourselves are imperfect and broken, we are still wanted. There’s always the opportunity to come back to God, no matter what.”
As Hanna shares the emotions and joys of this process, she realizes what her album really means to her. Her joy is infectious as she explains “It’s always just been me and my guitar. But it’s becoming bigger, and I’m so excited!” She has grown and changed along with the album over the years. This process has shaped her, all beginning with a man on the street who wanted to tell his story.