Sam Lee - Meeting is a Pleasant Place feat. Trans Voices (Official Video)

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See bottom for Song Lyrics and Song Notes
Written by Sam Lee
Arranged by Sam Lee & James Keay
Produced by Bernard Butler
Sam Lee: Vocals
James Keay: Piano
Misha Mullov-Abbado: Double Bass
Josh Green: Percussion
Bernard Butler: Electric Guitar
Joseph O'Keefe: Violin
Ilā Kamalagharan: Voice
Yusuf Narçin: Trombone
Laetitia Stott: French Horn
Bridget O’Donnell: Violin
Trans Voices:
Jackson Harms
Coda Nicolaeff
Kobi Ayensuo
Ilā Kamalagharan
Elouiza France
Directed by Orban Wallace
Produced by Fern Leigh Albert
Edited by Orban Wallace and Betty Lish
DOP: Jamie Wolfeld
Camera Assistant: Leo Smith
Hair & makeup: Hebe Wallace
Shot on location in Dartmoor National Park
Special thanks to:
Leo and Lily Lawson O'Neill, Guy Shrubsole, Leonie Hampton, Felipe Veros, Alana Bloom, Ric Hollingsbury, Terri Windling, Lisa Rowe, Laani Takahata, Chloe Dyson and Hendrik Faller
Meeting is a Pleasant Place
For meeting is a pleasant place
Between my love and I
I’ll go down to yonders valley
It is there I will sit and sing
I’ll sit and sing for you my love
From morning noon till night
And from morning noon till night my love
It is there I will sit and sing
Time draws circles round our lives
Put your arms round me
Measure England’s miles with me old friend
Our walk is our release
For meeting is a pleasant place
Between my love and I
I’ll go down to yonders valley
It is there I will sit and sing
What will your four scores foresee
From the mountains down to your sea
Songdreaming opens wonder paths
Enchant us your melody
For meeting is a pleasant place
Let the valley sing, sweet child
Between my love and I
We’ve always known their song
I’ll go down to yonders valley
Listening land love, listening land
It is there I will sit and sing
Come our time of songdreaming
I’ll sit and sing for you my love
Let the valley sing, sweet child
From morning noon till night
They’ve always known our song
And from morning noon till night my love
Listen in, listen in, listen in
It is there I will sit and sing
Come the time of songdreaming
May the sun warm gently on your face
The wind blow from behind
The ground be soft in her embrace
And all you meet be kind
Meeting is a pleasant place
Let the valley sing, sweet child
Between my love and I
We’ve always known their song
I’ll go down to yonders valley
Listening land love, listening land
It is there I will sit and sing
It comes the time of songdreaming
I’ll sit and sing for you my love
Let the valley sing, sweet child
From morning noon till night
We’ve always known the song
And from morning noon till night my love
Listening, listening
It is there I will sit and sing
Song Notes
Partly sourced from an old Devon Gypsy folksong, perfectly anointed with both melodic and lyrical orientation, comes this timeless ordinance to re-imagine what the act of singing with the land can manifest. ‘Meeting’ is a charm or spell song to render the ground beneath us transparent to time, history and politics. This evolving of an old Devon mantra asks the land, and the many generations who have held songful allegiances to it, to chorus along. But ‘Meeting’ also calls in a new idea of companionship for the journeys we make. It imagines what stewardship for the land could be today, inherently petitioning for a permissive ‘open for all’ state in how we understand our place in nature. ‘Meeting’ with its decadent ‘English-folk-gospel’ sound welcomes the glorious chorusing of ‘Trans Voices’. This choir, made entirely of gender non-binary and trans singers, collectively resounds in that yearning for a renewed way of connectedness with nature. This song subtly demands that our natural heritage needs to be accessible to everyone no matter of cultural origin, gender sexual orientation or heritage. ‘Meeting’ implicitly remarks on the queerness that nature exemplifies, an expelling of masculine hegemonies and a rematriation of the land. ‘Meeting’ is a soulful call to arms, an anthem of ecological and multicultural emancipation, a denial of that segregation we’ve endured from our motherland and a psychological and literal disappearing of barbed wire all through the power of song. ‘Meeting’ is an anthem for a future that holds a nature-centric ideology at its heart. It asks what equality could feel like within the custodianship of our common stories both ancient and modern, and what guardianship of a nature-enriched and nature-centred England, Britain and World could be. To see it we must first sing it.