“I'd never met my grandfather, so it was cool to learn about the family history that way,” she says.įrom there, Cunningham researched other writings from primary sources during that period in history then blended stories together for this concept album, which was orchestrated by the rest of her bandmates.įor nearly a decade, Noble Dust has been releasing music that goes in unexpected directions. Cunningham’s family still lives in that Roxbury home that her grandparents bought together when her grandfather returned from the war.
“It was striking how similar the sentiments of their stories were to those in my grandfather’s letters - 20-somethings, children really, on opposite sides of a war, fighting for home.”Ĭunningham’s grandfather was stationed in the South Pacific and sent the letters back to her grandmother in America. “This song in particular draws from an oral history of Japanese soldiers and civilians called ‘Japan at War’ by Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. (Painting by KimThy Nguyen graphic design by Daniela Wong-Chiulli) “Red Letters” is a new single from the album, and like the rest of the project, it takes inspiration from those letters and other memoirs from both sides of World War II. It’s common for songwriters to find inspiration in their personal lives, but it’s pretty rare for that inspiration to come in the form of letters sent across the world roughly 75 years earlier. And that’s exactly what musician Emily Cunningham did.Ĭunningham sings and plays guitar in Boston-based band Noble Dust and also wrote the lyrics for the sextet’s upcoming album, “A Picture for a Frame,” after stumbling across a box of her grandfather’s letters in the attic of her family’s home.
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