Even as tributes poured in around the world in memory of the victims killed in the Orlando shooting, singer/song-writer Melissa Etheridge was so affected by the senseless tragedy that she wrote a song called ‘Pulse.’
Melissa said this was her way of coping– coming up with a song that calls for acceptance, unity, and humanity– with what happened, and said the proceeds will go to an LGBT charity.
Coming up with ‘Pulse’
Named after the Orlando gay bar where a shooter had killed 50 people, Melissa’s song was her way of trying to make sense of things.
“I’m dealing with it the way I deal, which is, I wrote a song. That’s how I first started to cope because, as a singer songwriter, I feel very … I’ve done this before,” Melissa told Rolling Stone.
“I feel called to speak; to do what musicians do. We’ve been the town criers for hundreds of years. We’re mirrors of society,” she added.
“We want to try to make sense. We want to try to heal. We want to bring some meaning, some purpose. We also want to put it down forever in history. That’s how I’m coping,” the singer-activist said.
Creating the song ‘Pulse’
With producer Jerry Wonda, she went to the studio the Monday after the horrific weekend and laid down the track, which she titled ‘Pulse.’
“There’s just something very poetic and very meaningful about the name,” she said. “You just start thinking about your own pulse.”
“It’s the way I’ve always felt about the gay movement, the gay issue. Here we are– people who are loving; we are fighting for who we want to love,” she said.
The song, for her, was also personal: “I play Orlando. I know all those people. I knew someone who [lives] just down the block from there, so you feel a connection. I had a guitar there and I just started writing.”
Making the ‘Pulse’ available
Melissa has made the song available for purchase, with the proceeds to be donated to Equality Florida, an advocacy group helping the survivors and families of the victims of the Pulse shootings.
“I just wanted [the song] to say that we can’t let anything like this drive us away or make us feel that love isn’t stronger, because love is stronger,” Etheridge explained to Billboard.
“As corny as it sounds to talk about love– and I wish there were as many words for love in the English language as there are in other languages– love is stronger,” she said.
Melissa’s song ‘Pulse’ is currently uploaded to Soundcloud, but you can also watch her sing the song in a video at a recent concert:
