"Anna Tragedienne" - A music video by AAP Illusions

"Anna Tragedienne" - A music video by AAP Illusions

Words, Music & Video ©2023 AAP Illusions/Robert Dada
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A few months ago, I was contacted by a software company whose utility software I regularly run on my Mac. They had contacted me as a power user and wanted to solicit my interest in being interviewed as to what I like about the software, issues, enhancement requests, etc.

I expressed interest but it didn’t really hit me until the Zoom invite arrived and the call was going to originate from Kiev, Ukraine. Yes, I realize the world indeed needs to continue spinning but in all my years of employment, much of it in software deployment, I never once felt like today could be the day a neighboring country bombs me out of existence. The unstated courage of all this really hit me.

When the call eventually was held, it was very pleasant. Honestly, the actress in the video kind of does remind me of the analyst who interviewed me. She came across as professional (but perhaps a little nervous. I think she was relatively new to the workforce) very polite and poised. We had a brief moment at the end where I asked about her wellbeing and she seemed a bit surprised a bit that I would ask but really, it was the only thing on my mind.

Later that day I wrote the poem that became this song. There are two ‘stars’ in the video. The first obviously is blonde Anna but there is also the unnamed brunette with child. For me, Anna represented the immediate face of the plight in Ukraine because I spoke with her directly, and saw her face on my screen. But as I was laying out the song and later the video, I wanted to also pay tribute to those whose faces and stories don’t get out because there is just too much hardship to distribute. I wanted to bear witness to those victims as well.

I very seldom explain my art to anyone. I guess that’s how much this Ukraine conflict has affected me. None of us will probably ever know what truly caused all this and if we did, we’d probably also be equally surprised by how dirty the hands are of all of our governments. But at the end of the day, that just pales in importance to all the innocent victims...on all sides – far too many in human existence.
============================================================Lyrics:

She appears on time, greeting you with a pleasing word
Hair golden yellow and a smile that recalls a joke you recently heard
A sense of nervousness perhaps but really nothing more than that
In the back of your mind though, the sound of rat-a-tat-tat

For you it’s warm sunlight, a cup of coffee and a light snack
For her, the lunchtime menu serves nothing but cold panic attack
You’d never sense the dread buried underneath some cute chitchat
In the back of your mind though, the sound of rat-a-tat-tat

You will never see the pain hidden behind those blue eyes
You could never imagine what she saw falling from her skies
And though you will probably never encounter her soul ever again
It is a foregone conclusion you will forever remember Anna Tragedienne

In all honesty your time is short with important things to address
But maybe for her it’s an important day too, perhaps a boss to impress
You’ve been in her shoes before so you can keep her from falling flat
In the back of your mind though, the sound of rat-a-tat-tat

The time now concluded, thirty minutes indeed very well spent
You’ll undoubtedly spend time deliberating over what it all meant
Then you’ll freeze it into a poem, a song or maybe something to look at
In the back of your mind though, the sound of rat-a-tat-tat

You will never see the pain hidden behind those blue eyes
You could never imagine what she saw falling from her skies
And though you will probably never encounter her soul ever again
It is a foregone conclusion you will forever remember Anna Tragedienne