COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – With a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse event just days away, one local folk singer wanted to take the event and turn it into a song.
Columbus folk singer Bill Cohen said there’s a bigger meaning behind his song “Eclipse.” For those who listen to it, he hopes that it will remind people that this eclipse can be so much more than a three-minute adventure.
“I just said, ‘Well, we should do a song. We should do a song about it.’ So I put the song together and then we said, ‘Well, wait a minute, if we could have some video, some visuals that makes it twice as powerful,’” Bill said.
Bill and his wife Randi work as a team. Bill has been doing music for nearly 60 years while Randi has always loved technology — she put together the music video for Bill’s song.
As you listen to the lyrics, Bill said he wanted to make the point that this once-in-a-lifetime eclipse is an opportunity for everyone to not only be inspired but to also reflect on their own lives.
“The fact that millions of people are going to be gathering together at the eclipse, that shows what an opportunity it is,” Bill said. “We know there’s going to be a feeling of community and we’re all hungering for more communities and that’s a step in the right direction, but hopefully it can be even more than that. Hopefully, it can be a time when we think about a better world.”
The music video consists of pictures that Randi has taken over the years. She said she created a couple different versions but is happy with the final product.
“In the video, you’ll see there’s pockets of darkness, too, because we really wanted to inspire people to use their own imaginations as well as what’s going on here,” Randi said.
The song came together relatively quickly. Bill said it starts with a description of an eclipse, then it describes shadows moving over the sun, but then he wanted to make it more than just a physical description of an eclipse.
“I wanted to make the point that this is an opportunity for us, not just to be wowed and inspired by this cosmic miracle, but also it’s an opportunity for us to think about our own lives, our personal lives,” he said.
The couple said they just want people to feel inspired.
“The last verse of the song is talking about, let’s pull back and let’s imagine, decades and centuries in the future, perhaps would it be that future generations look back on this as a very dark time?” Bill said. “We know we’ve got big divisions and big problems. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they looked back on this time and saw how bad it was but also saw that this was the start of new generations of new thinking, of new togetherness in the world.”
“Maybe we could reflect a little bit on our tininess and how we could do good instead of how we keep moving towards the darkness. Let’s move towards the light,” Randi said.
The music video was posted to Facebook and can be viewed here.
