We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

You Are Strong (A Friend's Story)

from Scatter the Light by Eileen Ivers

/
  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Liner notes and beautiful artwork by Marianne Mangan

    Includes unlimited streaming of Scatter the Light via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days

      $15 USD

    You own this  

     

  • Digital Track
    Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $1 USD  or more

    You own this

     

about

A friend shared this traumatic event via a facebook post. It was such a shocking story. I was taken aback that it would fall to the bottom of the newsfeed with a few "likes and sad emojis" …only to be scrolled away.
I immediately heard her courageous words as a song in my head. With her permission, I put it to music and I recorded it with the hope of it possibly helping others ...as was her wish by posting it. Her strength is yet another testament that light does indeed shine through the darkness.

lyrics

It was super bowl Sunday when I finally became my own hero.
While meeting a potential client, I was attacked & reported to the SVU bureau.
So many thoughts were racing through my head, yet I couldn’t compose the sentences to be said.
I was completely in shock, as detectives asked me to get him to talk.
But this was no ordinary guy, he knew the system & served as a private eye.
You see for him it was all too easy. I couldn’t have been the first ...believe me.
These monsters don’t send that “check you out” look. They just quietly study your routine like a book.
And then they stage a meet up, mentally unlocking your brain 'til they sneak up.
And at that point it’s much too late, it’s a bad dream and you need to escape.
Feeling completely violated under the monster’s scour, survival mode kicks in, instinctively you find the power.
The power, to get out of a foreign place, with memories you immediately want to erase.

Chorus:
Strong, you are strong, you are strong
Strong, you are strong, you are strong

So you find someone with a pure heart, and explain to them that you’re falling apart.
They tell you it’s not your fault, and that you’re a victim of an assault.
But you’re just constantly counting the times, the moments that felt like signs,
Where you should have seen it coming ...and you should have started running.
Also nervous “will people believe me?” Your heart racing and breathing wheezing.
But I was blessed to have friends with much support who encouraged me to make a report.
The catch, you only get an order of protection, once the police are able to arrest them.
So I waited for 9 days until he turned himself in, afraid of the fake profiles friends found of him.

Chorus

Those days I stayed hidden, scared of my own skin. Once he was in custody my life could begin again.
Protected, but not permanently in place, just until the resolution of the case.
Where lawyers kept asking me to remember I sat shaking, trying to keep it all together.
Yet surprised myself at times speaking loud, emotions on a rollercoaster, ashamed then proud.
The judge said it was one of the hardest decisions in his career, but we needed more facts to make it clear.
To prove guilty beyond doubt we needed more evidence for any of the charges to enforce a sentence.
Now I’m left with zero years of protection, this failed system is in need of the objection.
The survivor shouldn’t have to see their monster for life; they stole a piece of them and that can’t be made right.
And now I sit constantly feeling like I need space, yet continuously looking for somewhere that seems safe.
The only positive in this experience is that one day, I could help another survivor who felt astray...
Realize that they can be healed and love as others do ...that they are beautiful, and WE BELIEVE YOU!
No matter the flawed system,
SPEAK YOUR TRUTH!

Chorus

SPEAK YOUR TRUTH!

credits

from Scatter the Light, released March 13, 2020
T. Mangan / Ivers

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Eileen Ivers New York, New York

Eileen Ivers will change the way you think of the violin.
Grammy awarded,
Emmy nominated,
“a sensation"- Billboard
"Jimi Hendrix of the violin"-NY Times.
Pushes trad fiddle boundaries from folk music staple to intensely driving world stage experience
…performer,composer,producer,songwriter,bandleader,educator,multi-instrumentalist,pioneer,connects her American,Irish trad,jazz, blues,and world roots
... more

contact / help

Contact Eileen Ivers

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this track or account