Beach singer Christie Ulicny’s Paper Cranes pays tribute to her late mother

By VINCENT LIN

Beach singer Christie Ulicny has recently released a new song in honour of her late mother.

“She was the type of person who saw everybody as an equal, and everyone as someone who deserved love and respect,” said Ulicny when asked to describe her mother Margaret.

Ulicny is a local artist who started her independent music career in 2005, and has just released her new single titled Paper Cranes which marked what would have been her mother’s 75th birthday. Margaret died from lung cancer when Ulicny was nine years old.

“My mom was a smoker, unfortunately for her,” said Ulicny.

The song title Paper Cranes is in reference to a children’s novel that Ulicny had read while her mother was battling cancer called Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. The story was about a Japanese legend where folding 1,000 paper cranes for somebody who is ill would lead them to recover.

“When she was sick I started trying and I got to 53 before she passed away. When you’re nine it’s hard to remain focused on goals and things, but yeah that was something I did as an attempt to contribute to her wellness when I was young.”

Ulicny describes what she was trying to convey through the song as a “sense of connection”.

Speaking about her own experiences growing up dealing with loss and “carrying grief” from a young age, she explained how Paper Cranes conveys a sense of connection with the listener and an acknowledgement for someone’s experience with loss whether it be her own or somebody else’s.

“Often grief is something that western cultures and people are often uncomfortable with. So it’s really acknowledging the ‘okayness’ of grief and of moving through experiences of loss in your own time and on your own terms,” said Ulicny.

She said her mother had a large impact on the song’s lyrics and sound.

Describing the lyrics as “really just my experience as a kid” and talking about waking up from a nap and going to a downstairs that smelled faintly of cigarettes and seeing her mother.

“I always loved waking up and coming down to see her,” said Ulicny.

The song’s pre chorus and chorus are influenced in a similar manner, the pre chorus being influenced by the sight of her mother in the hospital and the chorus influenced by the humming that her mother used to do.

“I think just having music around is what inspired me,” said Ulicny when asked about how her mother impacted her career in music.

Ulicny explained how music in her childhood played a big role in her becoming the artist she is today, giving a lot of the credit to the choir that she was exposed to due to her mother bringing her to church.

“Something about the harmonies and the beauty of it and the resonance in a church and all that,” said Ulicny.

Looking back on Paper Cranes, she said “it feels super cathartic” while going over the tough process that she went through in creating it.

Ulicny said the song is a beautiful tribute and thanked the producer and everyone involved in its creation.

“It’s been many years but there’s still so much to unpack when something happens when you’re young and you don’t really have the capacity to deal with it at the time,” said Ulicny.

More on Christie Ulicny is available on her website at https://www.christieulicny.ca