River Run

Commissioned for the 2017 Oregon Children’s Choral Festival, River Run is another hit from Aardvark Hill that your choir will love to sing and your audiences will love to hear! A Festival Favorite series song, River Run is that rare gem of a song that combines beautiful, moving melodies with rich and emotional lyrics to engage singers and audiences in an emotional and meaningful experience.

• Kids love River Run because it gives words and beautiful melodies to big ideas that they are just beginning to become aware of.
• Directors love River Run because it provides fun, contemporary music that their kids want to sing, along with great music and lyrics with depth and meaning.
• Audiences love River Run because it brings them closer to the people in their lives when they hear it and it’s so easy to learn that many people will be humming along before the performance is over! And its’ so catchy that everyone will be singing it on the way out the door!

So many children’s choral pieces are “lyric light”, meaning they have pretty melodies that lift up lyrics that have little meaning or meat to offer. River Run is filled with a deep layers of rich metaphor for your kids to explore and grab onto. It’s idea and lyric heavy. Enough that you can, and we hope you will, spend time in rehearsal digging around to uncover some of the many metaphors and threads of meaning flowing through its, simple, beautiful melodies.

• Piano/Cajon accompaniment tracks will be available soon!
• Cajon part instructional video coming soon!

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River Run

Bruce & Jennifer Searl and Chris Dobson
Dedicated to Satsuki McMullen – We are tumbling through our adventures, knowing we’ll always be together –
Our love is the river that carries you.

Chorus
River run, river run,
river run, to the sea.
River run, river run,
river run, run to me.

Piano

Verse 1
Plunging thru thunderous skies, driving it stings our eyes,
carving down mountain sides, so for a thousand lives.
Easing ‘cross gentle plains, until it’s all the same –
Home at the great expanse.

Verse 2 + Chorus
Thru all the tears we’ve cried, oceans of dreams confide’
wandering far and wide, safely I’m by your side.
Finally you meet me there, with our whole life to share
Our love is made to last.

Chorus
River run, river run,
river run, to the sea.
River run, river run,
river run, run to me.

Bridge
Still and deep is the water at the end
Pure and sweet like the laughter of a friend.

Chorus + Verse 1
Chorus + Verse 2 + Chorus Echo

(3 part layers)
Run to me, run to me, run to me
Run to me, run to me, run to me

Copyright 2017, Aardvark Hill. All rights reserved. www.aardvarkhill.com

A Letter From the Composers

Dear choristers,

Thank you so much for singing “River Run”; we know our song is in good hands.

To help you breathe life into this song, we would like to offer a little guidance as you prepare and perform this piece.

“River Run” is not about a river! In fact, it’s not about weather, rain or the sea. “River Run” is really about you and me.

The river is a metaphor.

A metaphor is when we say one thing to describe something else. For instance, when we say “Jack is a bean,” we know Jack is not really a bean, but since beans are long and skinny and Jack is tall and skinny, we can say it using that metaphor. We use metaphors because they’re more interesting, more visual and they might even give us insight into that person or thing. For example, we might say that each of us is a single drop of rain— or each snap of your fingers in the beginning of this song is a person— and we fill this world like countless drops that come together in families of creeks, pour into streams of communities and friends, fall into rivers of cities and come together in the great sea comprised of all the people of the world.

As you will begin to notice, nothing in this song is as it seems. Everything is a metaphor for you and me and our lives. The heart of “River Run” is really about how each of us is as separate and unique as a drop of rain but when we come together, we are so much more! It’s about how just as gravity pulls every drop to the sea, love pulls us all together so that we can find and love each other along our great journey to this giant ocean called humanity. The mountains and valleys and plains are the paths our lives take — dangerous, hard, beautiful, majestic and peaceful along our way. You might want to spend a little time looking for other metaphors in the lyrics of River Run. There are many. Maybe your director will give you a candy bar if you find more than anyone else!

Look around you. Each person you see, whether a friend or a stranger, is so different from you. We really are all the same. We all need love and friendship. We all need people around us to make our journey come alive and be full of joy, or to help  us get through hard times. We hope that as you rehearse and sing “River Run,” you’ll think about ways that you can make  your life’s river run to each person in your life, and as we come together, how we can love each other and make our lives like an ocean of friendship, peace and love for every person around us. Because really, you are the rain, you are the river, and  together, we are the sea.

River Run was composed for the 2107 Oregon Children’s Choral Festival but it is dedicated to Satsuki McMullen, a dear friend our daughter and family, who lost her battle with Leukemia just after her senior year of high school. Satsuki was far more than a drop of rain in our lives. She was a refreshing, life giving stream of laughter, friendship and love to everyone fortunate enough to know her. We have so many great memories of our tumbling adventures with her and we will never be able to fully let her go. Now, our love is the river that carries her along.

Let your river run full and with lots of love for those around you.

Bruce, Jennifer & Chris