Beverly Glenn-Copeland's Personal Best
Ahead of his new album Laughter in Summer, and with a landmark slot newly confirmed for this year’s End of the Road Festival, Beverly Glenn-Copeland reflects with Alan Pedder on five highlights from a quietly momentous career.
There’s a slight irony to the fact that so much of Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s career has been defined by absence when his music is so thoroughly rooted in togetherness.
It’s understandable. After all, not many classics disappear into obscurity for almost 30 years only to resurface in a late blaze of glory, and even fewer have done so within the lifespan of their creator. But when Glenn-Copeland’s Keyboard Fantasies found its way from a Japanese collector back into the cultural record in 2015, the decades of lost time somewhat buried the lede.
It’s true that, as a time capsule of 1986, when it was first released in a limited run of hand-sold cassette tapes, Keyboard Fantasies breaks with almost every accepted norm of electronic music of the era. There’s a humility and gentleness to its synth lines, not just made by machine but of the machine – a sort of husbandry over hubris approach to electronic music that few would even come close to until, say, the early 2000s. But when I listen to Keyboard Fantasies, I don’t hear an album ‘ahead of its time’, necessarily. I hear more or less the same thing I see when looking at the paintings of Hilma af Klint. Something with a chronology and internal logic all of its own. Something less composed than tuned into, filtered through methodical intention and a belief in structures existing beyond sight.
Just as the Swedish artist and mystic understood her paintings as transmissions received through showing up to the universe spiritually, as opposed to inventions of ego, Glenn-Copeland takes little credit himself for the songs of Keyboard Fantasies, or for much else that has come to him since. What he will admit to, though, is that being an artist who functions as a conduit does not equal getting off lightly. “I might not think up the words or think up the tune, but I’ve had to work really hard to be able to receive whatever it is I receive,” he tells me over video call from his home in Hamilton, Ontario.
Sitting next to him, shoulders almost close enough to touch, is his wife Elizabeth Copeland, who offers her own thoughts on that ‘whatever’, describing Glenn’s music as “a love letter to humanity.” “I don’t know if you agree with that,” she says, turning to her husband, but he nods and smiles. “Pretty much, yeah, that's my primary concern. We humans seem to be regressing recently, which is very sad, but I want my music to encourage people to be present in the moment with each other.”
That humble goal comes through soft-loud and clear on his newest album Laughter in Summer, which arrives just two and a half years on from The Ones Ahead, making it the swiftest follow-up he’s made since his first two albums, released a year apart in 1970 and 1971. In fact, says Elizabeth, they weren’t thinking of making an album at all. Gifted free studio time by Howard Bilerman, co-owner of the iconic Hotel2Tango studio in Montréal and a big fan of Glenn’s work, the idea was just to go in and rehearse with a choir (including the city’s own Helena Deland) ahead of their performance at Montréal Pop Festival some days later.
“Our music director Alex Samaras had written some arrangements already, so we thought we’d go in and just record what we were planning to do in the concert, for archival purposes, just for fun,” she says. “But when we listened back to it, we were like ‘Oh my god, some of this is beautiful. No, all of it is!’ and that’s how the album came to be. We did tweak a few harmonies here and there, but that was the only other work we did.”
This economy of time is not new to Glenn-Copeland’s work. “His thing in the studio is that he only likes to do one take,” says Elizabeth, though the choir were perhaps the last to know. “They did the first take of ‘Ever New’ thinking that it was just a rehearsal, and they just seemed so in awe of being in the same room as him. Then Glenn said, ‘Okay, next song,’ and they were like, ‘Oh what? No. Give us another shot.”
Of the nine songs on Laughter in Summer, three are new versions of older songs – “Ever New” from Keyboard Fantasies, and both “Harbour” and “Prince Caspian’s Dream” from The Ones Ahead – and some date back to the period when Glenn-Copeland was far out of the spotlight, running a theatre school together with Elizabeth on Canada’s Acadian coast. “We first came together as friends and soon realised that we had the same artistic practice, the same sort of mission, for want of a better word,” she says.
“It wasn’t the ‘me show’. It was about how we could show up for other people, and to impact them in a way that encouraged them to be more present and courageous within themselves and with each other.” “We see what we do as community building, ultimately,” she adds, as Glenn nods thoughtfully and smiles. “Yes, that’s a wonderful way to put it. That’s really the purpose of it all.”
"It's important to remember that hope is a verb. It's not a fluffy feeling. Hope is about action, just like love. It's a fierce, active, doing word."
“When Glenn talks about working really hard, it’s to remind artists that part of our work is to be ready when something comes,” clarifies Elizabeth, who, alongside her theatre work, has recorded her own music and written a book-length eco-poem. “If you’re not doing your daily practice, you’re not going to be ready. It’s a daily commitment. It’s a discipline. A playful discipline, but discipline nonetheless.” “I mean, no first violinist in an orchestra is going to just wait for the day of the major show,” Glenn adds as an example. “They’re going to be on it, practising every single day.”
What Laughter in Summer represents to them both is a way of coming back together as creative collaborators after the whirlwind of Glenn’s rediscovery in his mid-70s, which saw them going off in different directions for a while, even though, behind the scenes, Elizabeth has been managing and producing things for several years now. Asked if there are still things they are discovering about each other, after nearly 20 years of being a couple, Glenn can’t help but laugh first.
“Mostly things I’m discovering about myself, and it ain’t all great,” he says flatly. “Every now and then the personal ego can get in the way, but when it comes my time to leave, I want to know that I have worked on that so next time I come around I get a better deal,” he adds, referring obliquely to his recent diagnosis of a form of dementia called LATE, a brain disorder that mimics Alzheimer’s but is caused by the buildup in the brain of a different kind of protein called TDP-43. As a practising Buddhist, Glenn is perhaps more conscious than most of smoothing the pathway to reincarnation. “I’m being a little playful about this, but I’m actually quite serious,” he says with eyes twinkling.
At this point Elizabeth leans in and asks if he minds if she shares something personal, but of course he doesn’t. “The thing is, Glenn was brought up in the classical tradition, which is very exact, so when we first started to gig together he’d be like, ‘No Elizabeth, that’s a dotted half note. Don’t sing over the bar line. This is how I wrote it and this is how it has to be.’ I mean, we laugh about it now, but for a while I was wondering how we were going to get through it.”
Glenn’s diagnosis changed everything, she adds, making it harder and harder for him to perform in the same exacting, classically trained way. With Elizabeth’s encouragement he learned to let himself improvise on stage, similarly to how he would improvise as an actor when teaching at the theatre school. “I told him, ‘You just say yes to whatever is happening,’” she says. “Because I know that with his brilliant musical mind, which never ceases to blow me away, whatever comes through will be perfect. Often when we’re on stage now, he’ll improvise something like a heartbreakingly beautiful harmony or he’ll do something spontaneous with a rhythm, so we’ve been having a lot of fun.”
Like Hilma af Klint, it seems to me that the Glenn-Copelands truly get their roles as participants in a larger order, whether cosmic, spiritual, communal, or all three. As Elizabeth points out, there’s nothing like singing together in a group to elevate our interconnectedness and feel like there is still joy to be had, even in these difficult times. “She’s always figuring out ways to involve the audience in the programme, and she’s wonderful at it,” says Glenn. Elizabeth smiles broadly. “You know, I was listening to an interview with Viola Davis the other day and, I’m paraphrasing here, but she said ‘It’s not about the brilliance of what you do, it’s how the brilliance of what you do impacts on the people that receive it,’ and I thought that was very well put.”
By either metric, I’d say the couple are way ahead of the pack – Glenn in his unique position as a deeply loved and respected trans elder, and Elizabeth in her generosity of spirit – determined to usher people close, both to witness and participate in communal purpose and joy. Laughter in summer, and love whatever the weather.
Read on to discover which five songs from the past 40 years they’ve chosen as their Personal Best.
"La Vita" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland (2004)
BEST FIT: This is such a beautiful, wildly expressive song that at first appears structurally quite simple, but, like many of the best songs, uses repetition and contrast to build something that feels wonderfully rich. What makes this song deserving of a place among your personal favourites?
BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND: Two things, really. Firstly, I woke up one morning speaking Italian, which was quite surprising as I’ve never studied Italian. I wrote down the lyrics and asked a very good friend, who did speak Italian, if she could check that what I had written was correct, and she said it was perfect! So, I feel like that was transmitted and sent through to me, which was a really interesting experience.
The other reason is that the song is a reminder to us, as humans, that we need to slow down and stop rushing. We’re always rushing, always trying to do this and that. If we could just calm down and stop rushing so much, we’d invite in the best of ourselves, and the best of others too.
ELIZABETH COPELAND: For me, when I listen to this song, there are two things that really hit. First, it’s Maggie’s voice. The soprano line was sung by our dear friend Maggie Dace Hollis, who came from Latvia, and sadly left us in 2013 never knowing that her voice was going to be heard by the world. There’s such a kindness in her voice. To me, she sounds almost like Mother Earth or something.
The other thing is Glenn’s voice. I really love the contrast between the beautiful, long lines that Maggie is singing and the lines that Glenn sings, which are about the demands of daily life, about having to work all day and night to feed yourself and not knowing how you’re going to make things work. You can feel the anxiety building.
For me, this song is about making a wonderful connection with what is always there for us if we choose to go to it. Listen to the singer. Look at the beautiful blue sky. Stand out under the stars. And, ah, doesn’t this cup of tea taste delicious? There’s always a slower rhythm – a softer, longer energy – that’s available to us. But it does mean making a choice.
GLENN: Yes, and I think it’s all summed up in the line, “My mother says to me, enjoy your life,” which is something she did actually say to me. She was a wise woman, actually.
ELIZABETH: She was. You know, Glenn and his mother, Georgie, had come to a place of togetherness again before she left us. He was with her then, and held her as she was dying. So it really was a moment of realisation. We can’t necessarily do all the things we want to, or we feel we have to do, and life is so full of anxiety. But I think what we must do to enjoy our lives can be revealed to us, if we can just slow down and pay attention.
We also love what Romy did with the dance version she made. It’s so beautiful, and continues to be a way for people to discover Glenn’s music out on the dancefloor.
GLENN: Yes, that was really wonderful. I forgot about that!
Going back to Maggie for a moment, I understand that she was the one who kind of got you both together as a couple, which makes “La Vita” even more special.
ELIZABETH: Oh yes. When Glenn did a concert in 2002 to launch Primal Prayer, he invited both Maggie and I to sing backup. We hadn’t met before and we just kind of fell in love with each other as friends.
Then, in 2007, when I was going through a really difficult time – money was tight, I was a single parent, and it looked as though I might go bankrupt – I went out one night, looked up at the sky, and spoke out to the universe. I said to it, “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’ve done my best to be a good person and to help people, and you are not going to just leave me with nothing. I need a job. And while you’re at it, I want to find my mate.”
Later, when I went to sleep, I had this dream of Glenn. He was standing on a hill, backlit by a full moon, and so the next morning, when I woke up, I called Maggie and asked her what Glenn was up to these days. She said, “Oh my god, he’s just in the middle of getting a divorce. You’d be really good for him!” So Glenn and I met again at Maggie’s wedding that summer, and we’ve been together ever since. And, by the way, I did get a job! The only job I ever had. The HR person said, “I don’t know why I am hiring you. You have no relevant experience. But you seem really smart and I like your vision,” so I was able to pay down all the debut I was in and get myself back in some kind of shape.
GLENN: Honestly, if you have something you need in your life, send it to Elizabeth. She’ll pray for you and make it happen.
ELIZABETH: Yeah. Maybe I should start a little business for prayers manifested.
Alright, you know I have a list. Maybe I’ll send you something. So, Glenn, from what I understand, there were not many people before you who had combined operatic vocals with electronic music. Just a few. I was wondering if any of those earlier pieces had inspired you?
GLENN: No, not particularly.
ELIZABETH: Glenn doesn’t listen to a lot of music. He prefers to go and see dance.
GLENN: Yeah, actually dance is my favourite artform, and the second favourite is visual art. I love to write music and sing, but I don’t do it with any kind of concept in mind. It just comes to me as it is.
When you played “La Vita” in Manchester last year, I read that you added it to the setlist because the choir you were working with, F*Choir, had a special connection to it. What’s the story there?
ELIZABETH: One of their dear choir members who had passed relatively recently used to sing Maggie’s lines, so they wanted to do that song as a tribute to them. We also wanted to honour Maggie, because when Maggie left the world I think she felt quite discouraged that who she was an artist had never really been seen. Now millions have people have heard her voice and been touched by her voice.
It was a very emotional performance for all of us. When the choir first walked in, Glenn and I were almost weeping to see all these beautiful, diverse people being so openly themselves. You know, Glenn and Maggie grew up at a time when to be queer in any way was illegal. You could be thrown in the psych ward if people knew. So I remember thinking, “Maggie, love, wherever you are in the universe, I hope that you can see this. It’s what we’ve all worked and hoped for.”
"Ever New" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland & Sam Smith (2024)
BEST FIT: “Ever New” is, of course, one of Glenn’s most enduring, well-known songs, and deservingly so. It’s often been described as the centrepiece of the Keyboard Fantasies album, released 40 years ago this year.
ELIZABETH COPELAND: I think it’s the centrepiece of everything. Like, Glenn and I sometimes wonder how it is that nobody was really interested in this song when it first came out. A few women wanted to play it to help get their kids to sleep, but not many others. Now it’s seen as the core song, the song that everybody must hear. And there’s something so simple about it. Glenn has the ability to write music that is apparently simple on the surface. Even though it can be actually quite complex underneath, people receive it in a very simple, heartfelt way.
BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND: Yeah, it’s interesting. I remember, again, the words and the music all seemed to come at once without me even really thinking about it. Then, when I really looked at the words, I realised, ‘Oh, it’s all about welcoming those things into our lives that make us feel good. The things that make us feel ever new.’ “Welcome the spring, the summer rain / Softly turned to sing again / Welcome the bud, the summer blooming flower / Welcome the child whose hand I hold / Welcome to you both young and old.” I mean, that’s the core of everything, from my perspective.
I'm interested how your relationship with this song has changed over the past 40 years.
GLENN: It actually hasn’t, except for the fact that Sam Smith appeared! And when I say appeared, I mean I didn’t even know who they were at all. I was not familiar with their music or the fact that they were openly queer.
When I was invited to go into the studio to record a new version of this song, it was a place I’d never been to before and I was quite worried about it. Elizabeth reassured me that it would be okay and that I was going to be able to do it. She really calmed me down. Then, when Sam Smith – this person I had never seen before in my life – appeared after I had rehearsed a little on my own, I remember I looked at them and thought, ‘Oh, what a beautiful being!’
Then, when they started to sing, I was stunned. After it was done, I said to them, “That’s it, I’m adopting you as one of my kids.” I mean, it was just unbelievably beautiful to sing with them. They were improvising as they went along and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness gracious me.’ I just could not believe what I was hearing.
ELIZABETH: It was sort of a last-minute thing. I remember we had done a show in Brooklyn the night before and somebody from the TRANSA album called and said, “Look, Sam’s in town and Glenn’s here. We can get the studio space. Can you come?”
When we got there, Sam was sitting very quietly in the corner. A very humble human. We only had about an hour and a half because Sam had a hard stop at a certain point, but, you know, Glenn goes slow to go fast. It took him a while to get familiar with the space and to start to feel comfortable. After 45 minutes of that, the producer came up to me and said, “We’ve really got to start the recording,” but I knew that Glenn could just do it in one take and that it would blow their minds. And that’s exactly what happened. Glenn walked into the recording booth, did it in one take, and everybody in the room was weeping, including Sam.
We asked Sam if they wanted to go in and join Glenn and they did, and it was, as Glenn said, just stunning. Even though they were two artists who had never met before, they were both just so completely in the zone with the music and both are great listeners. They were standing facing each other so they could both see what the other one was doing and respond to that.
GLENN: It was one of the most wonderful experiences of my entire life. To have this person join me at the last minute, this person who I knew nothing about, and to realise that they are just this amazing being. Yeah. It was very special.
ELIZABETH: Funnily enough, as I was sorting through the papers in our house recently, I came across a letter Sam had written us that I had misplaced. What they wrote was essentially the same thing as Glenn just said – that recording and singing with Glenn was truly one of the greatest experiences of their career. Actually, when Glenn won a Legacy Award at the Pink Triangle Press Pink Awards in Toronto in November, Sam came all the way up from New York to honour him. They’ve made this very deep connection.
GLENN: Yes. A very, very deep and very wonderful connection, for both of us.
ELIZABETH: We wish things were different in the States right now, because Sam’s people have reached out to us and invited us to New York to do a concert with them. But for Glenn, as a Black trans man, going to the United States at this point…
GLENN: Yeah, it just doesn’t feel good. It’s not worth the risk.
I want to touch on that when we speak in a moment about “Stand Anthem”, but I just wanted to say one more thing about “Ever New” because I like that it frames renewal as not just an individual thing but as a collective, intergenerational idea that’s passed down, almost like a folk song or a hymn. Especially with this version with Sam. Would you agree that their presence on the song reinforces its meaning?
ELIZABETH: For me, yes, I would say it reinforces it.
GLENN: Yeah, I was honoured that they were willing to come out and do that. But I do also think that there are a lot of possible ways that a song like “Ever New” can be sung and still carry the same message.
I also really appreciate how the song appears at the end of the TRANSA experience – the very last song in a tracklist that runs to four whole hours of music – and how it ends with Ahya Simone's beautiful harp line and the sound of a wave rushing into shore. It feels like it’s carrying us into some kind of magical, glittering future that’s more hopeful than the reality we live in. I know that Glenn was an important ambassador for the whole TRANSA project, so I wondered if it was important to him to end on this healing note of renewal?
ELIZABETH: I think it was Dustin’s idea to have this song as the last one, but I might be wrong. The whole album was, in a sense, a birth process, and we really do believe that there’s another world waiting to be born. But in order for this new world to be born, the old world has to die. It needs to die, because so much of it is based on violence. Will the death be painful? Yes, but there are always elements of birth and death that are painful. There will of course be challenges. We have to claw back all the rights of trans and queer people, the rights of women, and the rights of anybody who’s mildly different from your basic white dude. But we just have to trust that a better world is right around the corner. So, yeah, we love that the TRANSA team chose to end with that song.
"Stand Anthem" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland (2023)
BEST FIT: Some people have described “Stand Anthem” as your most openly activist work. In the two-plus years since The Ones Ahead, clearly things have become even more challenging for queer people, and trans people in particular, in many places around the world, including Canada. When you perform “Stand Anthem” these days, is all that on your mind? Or are you more focused on bringing people together in the moment?
ELIZABETH: Both, really. We’ve been on tour with “Stand Anthem”, performing it for over a year in different places, and each time there are new setbacks in social justice, climate justice, and so on. That’s painful for us every time we stand on stage to sing this song. It’s painful to see that people think having human rights gives them the right to be awful to other people they don’t like. That’s not what human rights are. Human rights are that we all deserve to be treated in a just and compassionate way. This song reminds us that we all need to stand up and do something, instead of just sitting around and complaining about the state of things. People think “Oh, nothing I do is going to make a difference,” but if you make yourself part of a ‘we’, well, it’s a lot more fun to join with other people fighting against the same things, and it does make a difference.
GLENN: It’s exactly what’s needed.
ELIZABETH: People often ask us, “How do you maintain hope?” and I think it's important to remember that hope is a verb. It's not a fluffy feeling. Hope is about action, just like love. It's a fierce, active, doing word. You can’t help but feel hopeful when you’re actually doing something and realizing that there are millions of people around the globe doing amazing things too. Millions of people trying to stop the spread of fascism and to speak up against all the war crimes that are happening. We’re much more easily controlled when we’re isolated and frightened – and there are things to be frightened of, you bet – but that fear is also telling us, ‘Hey, something needs to shift here.’
GLENN: The other thing is that the good news doesn’t sell newspapers. It’s very hard for people to know about the good things that are going on around them. The words to “Stand Anthem” came from a wonderful poem that Elizabeth had written. I looked at that and I knew that I had to write some music to it.
ELIZABETH: That’s right. I had just finished an eco play and I wanted a song to end it with, a song that pulled together all of the themes. Glenn has always been a tortoise. He’s very slow and methodical with how he does everything when he writes music. But with “Stand Anthem” he went out to his studio and he came back with this incredible song, which we used to end the play, and then he reworked it for the album.
And the play was called Bearing Witness, right?
ELIZABETH: Yes, and that kind of morphed into my book, Daring to Hope at the Cliff’s Edge, which as Glenn says, is a poem, a long, narrative eco-poem.
GLENN: It’s meant to be read all at once.
Right, and as far as I know, Glenn, your role as a narrator in the song from the play was from the perspective of an elder who’s giving guidance to the younger generation.
ELIZABETH: Remember, in the play, you and our friend Don, who is a Mohawk elder, played the voices of the ancestors? I think the song is similar to “La Vida”, in a way, in that it is a reminder to “live so the truth can be heard.”
GLENN: “Honour own ancient wisdoms / Live so the truth can be heard / Honour the brave gone before us / Live so that life can endure.”
ELIZABETH: That’s right. You know, we’ve talked a lot about the fact that, for the first 200,000 years that humans were on the planet, we did pretty well because we knew that we needed each other. All of our ancestors who lived and died were still with us. I feel like all that memory is still in our DNA. So it’s just like, get in the game, guys. Stand up!
I remember reading one history book that blamed the agricultural revolution for everything. What’s your view on that?
ELIZABETH: Well, when you go back, interestingly enough, it kind of did start there. That's when it started to become that some people were more important than others. If you look at Indigenous cultures, everyone has different roles and, while some people might have more authority than another person, they don’t live a better life. They don't get all sorts of privilege while the others get hardly anything. Theirs is a more circular society that allows people to do what they do best.
GLENN: There’s no concept that I am above you, or I am better or more fortunate than you. That is not there, right?
ELIZABETH: As opposed to in Western society, where, because I have white skin, I have a certain amount of unearned privilege. And because I speak the English language, I have a certain amount of unearned privilege. Can I give that privilege away? No, but can I ask how I use that unearned privilege for good.
"Harbour (At Hotel2Tango)" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland (2026)
BEST FIT: The original version of “Harbour” was written as a birthday gift for Elizabeth, which is something you’ve done a lot throughout your relationship. What made this one especially feel like a song you wanted to share with the world?
BEVERLY GLENN-COPELAND: Because, although it’s our personal story, I think it applies to almost everyone. This song appeals to people because it’s about all those things that make the person you’re with very special. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t things to work out, because there are always things to work out… unless you’re too alike, in which case you’re going to get bored with each other in no time flat!
ELIZABETH COPELAND: For me, there’s a particular sweetness in the lines, “And my heart aches when your tears flow / But then spring breaks and that’s all I know.” Over the decades, I’ve heard many, many songwriters play songs about partners who have really helped them to accept and love themselves in ways that they might have struggled with before, and Glenn has done that for me.
As I said before, Glenn is more of a tortoise. He gets very fierce where issues of justice are concerned – I mean, watch out if you’re in the room with him and somebody’s putting down a woman or a kid – but otherwise he’s much more of an even keel person than I am. I’d always wished I could be more like Glenn and not be this person who feels everything so deeply, but I remember he used to say to me, “Honey, you’re a very, very person. This is who you are,” and that really helped me to accept those parts of myself.
GLENN: Tell him about the rock thing, honey.
ELIZABETH: Oh, yeah, so when we first got together Glenn had this vision. He said to me, “You and I are like a rock and a balloon. I’m the rock, who is firmly on the ground, and you’re the balloon and your string is tied around me.”
GLENN: Yeah, she’s the balloon, but with all of these different antennas sticking out of it, picking up everything that’s going on in the universe.
ELIZABETH: He said, “You know, my job is to hold you to the ground, and your job is to be up there, seeing and feeling everything and getting all these little bits of information from the cosmos.” So he’s the rock, down there, asking me to tell him what’s going on. Even now, sometimes I’ll get a vision and tell him about it all excitedly, talking really fast about how we’re going to connect with this person and that person, and this or that is going to happen and it’s all going to come together. Then I’ll get to the end of what I had to say and he’ll be like, “I’m not quite sure what you said, but it sounds great honey.”
It took us many years as a creative couple to learn how to work with those differences in our basic natures and rhythms. I remember when we first opened our theatre school, we’d sit down to have a meeting about what we were going to do next and I’d be on point number 15 or something when he’d be like, “Okay honey, stop. Now, what was the first thing you said?”
Eventually we came to see that our differences were actually a strength for us as a couple, so we often ask other couples, if they’re struggling, whether the things they’re finding difficult might in fact be a strength if you’re curious enough to think, how can this work for us? These things that feel, right now, like they’re keeping us apart, how can they help us support each other in core ways.
GLENN: Yeah, that’s a really good way of thinking about it.
ELIZABETH: Now we can laugh about those first few years together, which were quite hysterical at times.
GLENN: We would go grocery shopping and she could have gone through the whole produce section before I even got out of the car.
ELIZABETH: He likes having multiple pockets so he’s always looking for his phone, his keys, his this and that, and it used to drive me nuts how long it would take him to get ready.
GLENN: Then one day I went, “Now what’s the damn hurry, girl? We’re going shopping together. Can’t you just slow yourself down?”
I think what's really beautiful about “Harbour” – in the context of what Glenn was saying earlier about feeling like everything has been given to him by the universe, including this love of yours – is that it’s a song that’s just as much about gratitude as it is about devotion, and I think that really comes across in the new version you’ve recorded for Laughter in Summer as a duet, singing to each other.
ELIZABETH: I love that we get to sing it as a duet now, because every time we sing it to each other, it just reminds me of what is the real heart of our relationship. As you said, Glenn made it for my birthday originally, and I was the only one who heard the song for almost 10 years, from 2013 until it was released on The Ones Ahead. Sometimes when we were having a difficulty, I would put the CD he made on and listen to this song and it would remind me of what our relationship really means. It reminds me, and I think it reminds others too, that we are all harbours for other people.
"Prince Caspian's Dream" by Beverly Glenn-Copeland (2023/2026)
BEST FIT: I’m glad you’ve chosen this one as your final pick, for two reasons. Firstly, because it's very beautiful, and secondly, because there doesn't seem to be all that information about it on the internet. So tell me, what makes this song a special one for you?
GLENN: What’s interesting about this song is that part of it came to me something like 30, 40 years ago. Just the first two lines, “Life is a part of love / The living art of love,” and then I couldn’t come up with anything more to add to it. I tried, but eventually I realised that whatever it was about the song that’s going to be happening, I’m not able to access it yet. I can’t get the rest of it now, so I waited.
About 10 years later, I remembered the song and tried to sing it, but again I sang the first two lines and nothing else came. I did the same thing 10 years after that, and again, nothing. Finally, the last time I sang it, I got the whole song and realised that I just hadn’t been advanced enough as a soul to receive it until that point.
ELIZABETH: With all of Glenn’s lyrics, I think there’s a sense that the poet in him is so finely tuned. His lyrics are a distillation of bigger things. I mean, even just “life is a part of love” is a whole meditation in itself. It’s not “love is a part of life,” it’s “life is a part of love.”
GLENN: “Life is the heart of love, this I know / I give my days into its keeping / Though sometimes laughing, sometimes weeping.” When I got the rest of the song, I felt deeply that something had been talking to me in a way that I couldn’t have understood until I was who I was when I finally figured it out.
That’s poetic in itself, I think. And those first two lines you quoted seem, to me, to sum up what a lot of this album, Laughter in Summer, is about, so I’m glad you re-recorded it from The Ones Ahead. I was wondering, though, about the relevance of the title. I guess you know the book Prince Caspian by CS Lewis. There’s a part in that book where Caspian has this sort of spiritual experience or vision where he sees Aslan the lion, so I was trying to imagine some link there.
ELIZABETH: I don’t know that the title had much, if anything, to do with the book. I don’t even know if Glenn has read it.
GLENN: Oh, no, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. But thank you for thinking of that.
Laughter in Summer is released via Transgressive Records on February 6. Beverly Glenn-Copeland and Elizabeth Copeland will perform at this year's End of the Road Festival, which takes place at Larmer Tree Gardens on 3–6 September.
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