Seniors in a small northwestern Ontario town look to empower with new music video

Older adults in a small northwestern Ontario town are encouraging others to enjoy the "golden ride," through a creative project that's all in support of a new community senior centre.

The group, self-dubbed "The Old Birds," worked together on writing, recording and creating a music video for their song called I'm Still Me.

Now that it's out in the world, the message of age empowerment is resonating well beyond the town of Emo, Ont.

"I think most people get it right off the hop," said Cindy Judson, who worked as the coordinator on the project, and also sings on the track.

"It plants that seed that there's positivity and we can enjoy our senior years together and have a really fun experience day-to-day," she added.

Judson said the group of seniors, who are all between the ages of 72 and 84, worked on the song over four sessions. Members of the group brought a number of ideas forward, and the creative process began to flow naturally from there.

"It started to come together as an idea about how it feels to get older, and have to give up some things as your abilities and your health decline … And eventually we had 4 verses sitting in front of us and we just polished that a little bit," said Judson.

"Everyone's really quite impressed with themselves that we were able to actually … birth a new product," she continued.

The funding for the project came from the provincial government through its Seniors Community Grant Program.

Nearly 300 communities were selected as recipients in the grant's latest funding cycle. The investment in senior centres in the province totals over $6 million.

The money is meant to support projects that aim to help seniors and older adults stay fit, active, healthy and socially connected.

The province said its investments in Senior Centres, like the one in Emo, comes as Ontario's senior population is set to increase dramatically over the next decade. 

Coming of age is a privilege, says song by seniors group

In I'm Still Me, the lyrics poke fun at wrinkling skin, and hearing loss, but there's also a more serious tone to the song, with the underlying message being that it's a privilege to age.

Once the song was written, Judson collaborated with her son, who handled the production side of the project.

Maverick Judson said the project served as a learning experience for everyone involved. Many of the participants had never stepped foot in a recording studio before, which came with some nerves.

"I just always try my best to make it a really relaxed, easy going atmosphere so they can really be at ease and give their best performances," said Maverick Judson, who is a local audio-video specialist in Emo, Ont.

"None of them have ever experienced anything like that ever, but there's a lot of ladies, with some surprising rhythm and a lot of them kind of blew my mind," he added.

Providing a welcoming space to try something new was always the outset of the music project, and is the overall aim of the new senior centre in Emo, located in the Knox United Church.

Capturing that feeling in the I'm Still Me song and accompanying music video seems to have worked, as registration filled up at centre after its release, according to Cindy Judson.