Love is Spoken Here
—Janice Kapp Perry, composer and lyricist
Sometimes ideas for songs come at unusual times and in unusual places. “Love Is Spoken Here” definitely had an unusual beginning. My husband and I were attending a party in honor of an outgoing stake presidency, and during a lull in the activities I said to my husband, Doug, “Please help me come up with an interesting idea for a song. I want to enter the Ensign songwriting contest, and the deadline is just two days away.”
As we were leaving our host’s home that evening, Doug pointed to a beautiful cross-stitched sampler above the kitchen sink. It read Love Is Spoken Here. “There’s your title,” he said. “Go to it.”
I loved the idea! The thought reminded me of the home I had grown up in, and I decided to write about two things that gave me a feeling of peace and security in that home: hearing my mother’s prayers and feeling the power of my father’s priesthood. I wrote one verse about each that could be sung at the same time over a common harmonic structure. This was my first experiment with countermelodies.
The piece did well in the contest and was published in the Ensign. A few years later a Primary teacher from Texas wrote to say, “We’ve enjoyed learning your song, ‘Love Is Spoken Here,’ and are writing to ask permission to make the phrase into a cross-stitch sampler.” That seemed only right. The phrase had come full circle from a cross stitch sampler, to my song, to the Ensign, to a Primary in Texas, and back to a cross-stitch sampler.
I’ve had countless sweet experiences with this song; one that touched me deeply occurred during a presentation at a stake women’s conference in Provo, Utah. I asked for a volunteer to sing one of the melodies while I sang the other.
The hand of a teenage girl with Down syndrome immediately shot up, and I invited her to join me. If she can’t do it, I thought, I’ll just sing along with her. “Which part would you like to sing?” I asked.
“Either,” she replied with complete confidence and to the delight of the audience.
I assigned her the first part, started the taped accompaniment, and stood in awe as Amy Monson performed one of the sweetest renditions of that song I will ever hear. When it was my turn, I could hardly sing through the lump in my throat and almost had to ask for her help. When we sang our parts together, she held up her end perfectly, gave me a hug, and returned to her seat. The audience couldn’t restrain themselves from applauding her through their tears.
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