Tower of Strength
Tower of Strength 2
I am a tower of strength
Within and without
I am a tower of strength within
x2
Within and without
I am a tower of strength within
x2
All of my burdens fall from my shoulders
All anxieties slip from my mind
x2
May all my shackles be loosened
May all my shackles be loose, yeah yeah
May all my shackles be loosened
May all my shackles be loose
Who wrote this one?!
This chant, with African-American roots, was written by Helene Bohman-Blomqvist. (born in Sweden, January 15th, 1949.)
It is lovely sung as a three-part canon.
I was misinformed.
Tower of Strength was writtenby Jackie Summers. It was written as part of her falicitation of women’s empowerment workshops.
My sincere apologies.
I also heard this as credited to Jackie Summers, but I recently sung it in a circle and one of the women knew the original songwriters – Kath and Ini!
Maggie Wheeler of Golden Bridge Choir was able to confirm this directly with them. She got in touch directly with Ini (of Kath and Ini), who confirmed that she and Kath wrote a series of affirmation chants including Tower of Strength, which is on YouTube and also on Spotify. The chants were inspired by a book called Healing Secrets of the Ages by Catherine Ponder.
On Kath & Ini’s CD Affirmations (which I first owned in cassette form back in the late 80s!), the song is simply called “Strength” and contains an additional part that goes:
“I let all fear slip away, slip away, all fear slip from my heart” 2x
https://open.spotify.com/track/4CoMhMTV8omdjIeuRaFmO9?si=33841f3c8ef74ace or https://youtu.be/zQXLCFm1koA?feature=shared
They had another cassette of lovely chants called “Kali” that as far as I can tell has never been released on CD or streaming. I was able to save the cassette versions onto CD.