( ENSPIRE Music ) “Rooms With A View” Explores Emotional Themes as Donna Lewis Opens Up About Her Battle with Cancer
ENSPIRE Contributor: Nicole Armstrong
Multi-platinum singer-songwriter Donna Lewis, known for her iconic love songs, now shares a new side of her artistry. Her latest single, “Rooms With a View,” is a deeply emotional piece that also serves as a tribute to her battle with breast cancer. This powerful song is a unique collaboration between Donna and her son Archie Lewis-Harris, a talented musician and film composer. In addition to her new album, Donna Lewis is stepping up as an ambassador for Making Strides Against Breast Cancer. The incredible organization is the nation’s most significant and most impactful breast cancer movement.
“Rooms With A View” envelops the listener in a transformative world of stunning musical composition. The song features gentle sweeping strings and shadowy bass lines, evoking poignant scenes and evolving perspectives from the different rooms and windows that Donna saw during her time in treatment. The lyrics paint vivid scenes of day-to-day medical life – “from entering the hospital with my cold cap case in hand to the soothing touch of my nurse to being in a different room each time and seeing a different view out of each window.” At its core, “Rooms With A View” is a tribute to the loved ones and caregivers who provide strength and hold space for patients during complex journeys. The project’s sound and lyrics express immense emotion.
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The new album Rooms With A View is a collaboration between celebrated singer-songwriter Donna Lewis and renowned electronic artist and producer Holmes Ives. More than just an album, though, the record documents Donna’s year-long journey through breast cancer. She could find therapy in difficult times through her art, allowing it to ignite inspiration. Donna was introduced to the work of electronic artist and producer Holmes Ives in 2021. She noticed his artistic reworking of a piano vocal track she had released called “I Told You So.” From then on, she wanted to collaborate with him further. She suggested they work together once it came time to get creative again.
As Lewis began the creative writing process, she realized that, unintentionally, every set of lyrics going down on the page represented a different chapter of her experiences over the preceding year. Some captured the trauma and the fear of the diagnosis and treatment. In contrast, others were observational recollections of more mundane aspects of her life. Reflecting on her year, the lyrics recounted her favorite nurse or the views from the various treatment rooms. What had been intended to be a four-track EP became an album. The chapters of how Lewis’ story unfolded made it impossible to convey this momentous journey in anything less.
On her new album, Donna Lewis’s strong and inspiring lyrics, elevated by her expressive and impressive vocal prowess, were perfectly joined with the driving rhythmic dimensions of Holmes Ives’s stunning soundbeds. Their collaboration inspired a testament of strength, gratitude, and fear. The project relays support and inspiration to anyone who needs it, no matter the reasons, in today’s ever-more-challenging world.
Stream “Rooms With A View” on all major streaming platforms now.
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