Very moving & touching. God bless him🙏

Thank you Mike for this wonderful musical story. It really touched me. All the best. Björn

Little Red Harmonica
Music and Lyrics by Mike Krath

Many years ago,
When one of our sons was born,
The doctor told us your boy is very sick,
He’d live three to four years at most,
And when he turned five, we were so happy,
Maybe there was a chance after all,
And on that birthday I gave him a little red harmonica,
You may be weak, I told him, not able to do much but lie around, but with this you can play anywhere you are. 
Now go ahead, make something of yourself. 
Let’s hear some sweet music. 
And he smiled and took the little red harmonica in his hands. 
I’m gonna learn how to play this, daddy,
I’m gonna learn how to make a heavenly sound. 
I laughed. I bet you will, son. I bet you will. 

And for the next year,
He played the best he could,
Here and there, to anyone who’d listen,
To his brothers and sisters, to the neighbors, the cats, the dogs, even the pigs.
He loved that harmonica,
It never left his little hand all day, 
Not even to eat (to an extent)
And he had it with him by his side until he went to bed,
But on his sixth birthday, the music stopped. And we had to take him to the hospital. 
And there he begged me in a weak voice, daddy, please don’t let them take away my harmonica. I want to practice, I want to keep practicing. If I’m gonna die and be buried, don’t let me buried without it. 
And I promised. 
And when his 6-year-old body was lying in the coffin, the little red harmonica lay in his hands. 

Now the years have passed,
And we’ve moved on with our lives,
And I try not to think too much of my son,
But from time to time 
I have someone from our old town
Tell me that when they visited the graveyard. 
They swore they could hear a muffled sound
Of someone practicing a harmonica. 
And I start to think again of my little boy.  
I start to think of him day and night. 

In the great redemption story,
I know I’ll see him again,
I know I’ll see him and we’ll be standing side by side. 
And in my mind I see him with his little red harmonica,
And him saying,
You want to see me play it, daddy, you wanna?
And I say, of course, Let’s hear what you’ve learned all these many years. 

And I see him lift it and play a heavenly sound,
A sound that lights up my heart,
And I can’t believe it,
And I grab and squeeze him tight,
What joy is this? What joy are you giving?
And he laughs. 
Do you like it, daddy, do you?
Do I like it? I love it!
And I hug him again,
And then weep on his shoulder,
I’ve missed him so much. 
And I hear him say, don’t cry, daddy, this is heaven now. There are no tears. 
I know. But I’m crying tears of joy. 
And I hug him like I’ve never hugged him before. 
I hug my little boy with his little red harmonica like I’ve never have before.


Set-Up:
DAW: Reason 12

Analog Instrument:
C-Harmonica

Keyboard Instruments:
Folk Fiddle - Keyswitch - Insanity Samples
Appassionata Strings - Spitfire
Hanz Zimmer Strings - Spitfire
Voices - Barbary Solo Glide AH TF - Soundpaint
Solo Boy Legacy and Legato Sections - VOXOS
Originals - Felt Piano - Spitfire

Little Red Harmonica

I’m a song-writer who enjoys creating music of any genre.

My son recently introduced me to A.I. and taught me how to do covers of my previously released non-A.I. music. Since I've never considered myself a performer (except playing with worship bands at church or solo-piano at a rehab center) using A.I. is right up my alley.

Since I've  exhausted using my previously released music for A.I. covers, I now compose music in a DAW, rip to a wave file, and make an A.I. cover of this wave file. I then write lyrics to the A.I. music. It takes around 100 A.I. iterations to complete the lyrics and get a style I'm happy with.  

Brief Bio: Lived more than a quarter of my life overseas (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan). Each country gave me an appreciation for different types of music plus probably why I get bored easily in sticking with one genre or another.

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