Golden-Eyed Girl

instrumentation: baritone, piano

year composed: 2023 | 5 minutes

When my friend Kyle Forehand asked me to compose a song for him to sing for the inaugural Indiana SongSLAM! competition in December of 2023, I was incredibly excited. Kyle  had taken German with me that semester and we had discussed collaborating.

Having had just turned 20 years old, I was experiencing the anxiety and absurdity
of growing up. It seemed not long ago that my brothers and I lived in the same
house, that I would come home from school and immediately start riding my bike with the kid that lived next door. I wanted to find a poem that reflected on growing up in a beautiful way. I thought Gidlow's poem does that. The speaker tells the young girl that life becomes more difficult in some ways and that she should enjoy life while she can. I hypothesize that this poem is written to either a younger family member or to a younger version of herself, perhaps enc ouraging them to always appreciate life's beauty, while also grieving her youth.

text: Elsa Gidlow's "To a Young Dancing Girl"

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