SINGER and songwriter Elena Baravilala was honoured to have such a divine opportunity to tell a love story through a song. The song — Seven is a tribute to the late Tevita Secivo who passed away last December.
“Everything about this is just filled with truth, it’s beautiful and powerful,” said Elena.
“He met his wife Bogi who is also a pilot in flying school and they got married. They had three kids together and were very much in love. He loved music and this song is for him.”
Elena said it took her two days to write the song and after she did, she sent it back to Mrs Secivo who was teary because it was exactly what her late husband would have told her and what she would have told him.
“I then suggested Pauliasi to her to feature in the recording and he was actually their favourite male singer so everything just worked,” said Elena.
“I brought in Pauliasi showed him the song and he just loved it. We had such a great vocal chemistry in studio and we’ve been friends for a very long time too so it was very easy to collaborate. At the same time knowing how talented Pauliasi is I gave him the freedom to do whatever he wanted to do with the song (no limits), he’s incredible and just overly talented. He sang exactly how I heard it in my head when I wrote it.”
Elena said while this isn’t her first composed song, she always felt like it was the first. “It’s a beautiful piece of a love story being retold in song and I embodied it like it was my own,” she said.
“It feels great to be able to connect to that story, make it your own and allow the audience to connect to it. At the same time just being vulnerable to the story itself and express it from the origin of this story. This is more important to me — how do I retell this story through this gift of writing, singing and performing.”
The released preview reached almost over 10,000 in the span of two days.
Elena released their first gospel tape as sisters in 2002, won young Musso national song writing in 2006 and 2007, released my first gospel solo album in 2006 and the rest is history to date!
