SONGWRITING has always been Co Tyrone musician Justin McGurk’s personal therapy to help him through grief, loss and healing and now his latest words and music have been inspired by the positivity of Cookstown Down syndrome model Kate Grant.
You Are is the title of a new Christmas song and video featuring Kate with her angel wings, the message tapping into society's misconceptions and presumptions and accentuating the need for us all to appreciate that perfection is not a one-size-fits-all ideal.
The song was written with Nashville-based songwriter Cynthia Limbaugh Torres during a visit to Trim in Co Meath a few years ago when McGurk was in the middle of a counselling course at Ulster University, putting a few of his own demons to rest.
“Then, I saw Kate on the catwalk and thought of all the challenges she has had to overcome and a line in the song about us having ‘wings to fly’, really struck a chord,” says the carpenter-turned-musician from Kildress outside Cookstown.
“People are very quick sometimes to put their own limitations on to others and many might have thought Kate would never have become a model because of her Down syndrome, but there she was, living her dream – and that is what the song is all about, really – embracing life above differences and with self-belief and passion.”
The song is one of several inspiring originals penned by MGurk to feature in his upcoming book, Good Grief, containing several personal stories and poetry about “life, love and loss” and which will be launched alongside new album Wish You Were Here in February next year.
It is, he says, a “multi-media” offering, with each chapter having either a song or lines of his own poetry assigned to it, all “helping move people a little further along on their healing journey".
He writes from the heart, whether it’s Everyday Heroes, written during lockdown in praise of NHS staff, If I Could Take Your Place, penned nine years ago after his wife, Roisin, was diagnosed with breast cancer (she is now clear of the disease) or Wish You Were Here in tribute to his friend Fergal Mulgrew, also from Kildress, who died suddenly three years ago in Davagh Forest while out training for the Dublin marathon.
“I’ve always been a songwriter and a storyteller and the book is really just an extension of that," he says. "My therapy has been my songwriting – all through the most challenging periods of my life, the one constant has been my music. Even even when my wife diagnosed with cancer nine years ago, I still had to go out and sing on stage at someone’s wedding [with his band, Justin and the Boogie Men] and people would have asked how I could do that when I didn’t know what the future held.
“In some way, though, when I was on stage, it was a bit of escapism for me, from all my worries about that unknown future. I've always felt that, no matter what happens, you have to keep on singing.”
The personal songs – which have lately been finding a new, appreciative audience on his weekly Facebook Live events – the book and the counselling course are all rooted, he says, in unprocessed grief from his eldest brother’s death in a car accident 30 years ago.
“You Are was really inspired by some of my classmates on that course, many of whom were going through tough times with self-esteem issues,” says the father-of-two, “but going back to the first personal song I wrote, If I Could Take Your Place – it was an outpouring after Rosisin’s cancer diagnosis and a way for me to release bottled-up feelings and I think men have sometimes a habit of doing that.
“Then, when my friend Fergal died three years ago, I wrote Wish You Were Here which made me realise that the shock of his death opened up the pain that I had never really processed from when my brother had died. That was when I decided to go back to university to train in counselling – initially I had thought of grief counselling.”
Now, having achieved his level four in Counselling Studies with Ulster University through the Northern Regional College in Magherafelt, the musician is hoping to move more towards life coaching and is currently taking a new Success coaching programme with the end goal of helping others in their mental wellbeing.
“I have a very positive attitude around music and I think I can merge the writing and the music more easily in a coaching environment as opposed to a counselling environment,” he says. “I’m looking forward to helping more people find their wings to fly.”
:: You Are is available on digital platforms now. Justinmcgurk.co.uk
