📷 Photos by Jannica Honey

How did someone’s painful arm become a four year music project exploring the many moments of a woman’s life that are usually experienced in silence?

It was mid-COVID times. My partner, an incredibly strong woman who I was used to seeing endure trials and tribulations way beyond any I could stand, lost it. She was experiencing frequent, excruciating pain in her arm that stopped her in her tracks and made her cry out with the intensity. The doctor and the physio declared she had a ‘frozen shoulder’, and gave her some exercises she did with great dedication. No explanation for why this dreadful thing had suddenly arisen.

No-one mentioned the menopause.

If there ever was a time that women of all ages gathered and passed the wisdom of their experience from one generation to another, that time is not now. Instead of hearing from people who’ve been there before, my partner and I and most women around us grew up talking to our peers about issues – and they were no more clued up than us. That is if we talked about the issues at all. There seemed to be so many things that none of us did talk about: periods, sex, the menopause, all the many life changing experiences so many of us went through around the childbearing cycle, like abortion, miscarriages, not having children, not wanting to be a mother. Somehow, without anyone saying anything, we all knew not to speak openly about our experiences of such matters.

That’s how taboos work.

When I found out through a friend that frozen shoulders are strongly linked to the menopause, I was stunned. Why hadn’t anyone mentioned that? When I really thought about the matter, I saw two things: that relevant and vitally important information about all manner of female experience doesn’t get passed down from one generation to another. And two, that something that pervaded these subjects was shame.

And shame, I saw, brought silence, and silence brought isolation.

So we’d ended up with this insane situation: many many women all experiencing similar things, in need of support and community, and no-one feeling able to say anything.

I asked myself what, if anything, could I do? There seemed one very simple action: get people together to talk. Women of all ages, across the generations. I put a call out on social media inviting women to an online discussion about the menopause. This was before Davina McColl and her Channel 4 documentary, when menopause wasn’t as out in the open as it is now. I was amazed by how many women wanted to come. Too many – we had to have 2 different sessions.

I learned more about the menopause that day than in all my years. This gathering women of all ages together thing seemed to work. What else did we need to talk about?

I thought about my own life. What might help me to discuss with other women? Perhaps the fact that I don’t have children? I put another post online: would any women like to come together and talk about not having children?

Again, massive interest. Again, massive learning. I seemed to be onto something here.

What has any of this to do with music? As someone who lives, breathes and thinks song, I started to wonder whether there were any folk songs written about not having kids. I knew plenty about mothering (think of all the lullabies), songs about the plight of single mothers, but what about childless women? Online research brought nothing. I reached out to that stalwart of female folk song knowledge, Peggy Seeger, and asked if her she knew of any. She said absolutely, categorically no. There weren’t any.

So of course I had to write one.

And so began a process that has now resulted in an album and a ‘live gig experience’, The Elephant In The Womb.

Twelve songs and a two-hour show followed by a discussion. The show was developed in conjunction with survivors of various traumatic experiences and aims to use the unifying power of communal singing to bring connection and community to aspects of our lives previously experienced alone. Think gig-meets-folk-club singalong plus.

It features three genres: traditional song (or songs in a traditional style), ‘medicine music’ – gentle songs to soothe and comfort – and my own genre, ‘mad trad’, which sees me using a loop pedal to layer up multiple vocal harmonies and rhythms, still grounded in the folk song tradition. And I get somewhat creative with percussion too.

All are welcome to the show. The most common word people have used to describe their experience of the project so far is ‘inspired.’ People laugh and cry, which I personally think is a great combination. It gets people thinking, and talking, and singing. And, crucially, for any woman who wants to continue exploring these issues and experiencing community around them, there are ways to stay in touch beyond the gig.

The album is released mid-March, and is followed by a tour.
www.joaniebones.com/the-elephant-in-the-womb