Donna Lewis soared to fame with her 1996 pop classic “I Love You Always Forever.” In 2024, the celebrated singer-songwriter released her new album Rooms with a View, a collaboration with producer Holmes Ives.
The record is a documentation of the singer’s year-long experience battling breast cancer, capturing the hardships she faced while also celebrating the 25th anniversary of her breakthrough album, Now In A Minute.
The opening track, “Messenger”, is full of patience, demoralization, and the heavy feeling of defeat. The album’s interesting mix of alternative electronics foreshadows what is to come and maybe even the intensity of her emotions throughout her battle and treatment.
Lewis collaborated remotely with Holmes Ives, who sent Lewis the instrumental tracks that she brought to life with lyrics from the pages of her journal. Lewis said Ives’ instrumentals “inspired an album of stories, unlocking fears, and the climb to a healthier me – mind, body, and spirit.”
The title track is an honest, fear-facing, and inspiring hymn that embodies the experience of being and feeling sick. Lewis sings about the moment she first walked into the hospital to being in a different hospital room each time and seeing a different view out of each window; “it’s just another room with a view.” The track encapsulates the fear and intense anxiety, her attempts to self-soothe during the experience, and ultimately, the relief of the final day of her treatment. Lewis collaborated with her son Archie Lewis-Harris during the writing process of the song. She dedicates the track to her loved ones who supported her throughout.
Lewis shares, “When I received my breast cancer diagnosis in 2021, it made me think about how I was living my life… Was my body out of balance? Was my life reduced to a mere checklist? It was a tough moment that made me question whether I could rise above it. I saw cancer as an uninvited and unwelcome messenger—a dark dweller that I vowed to banish from my body with the support of my loving family, brilliant doctors, and my art.”
Rooms With A View captures the slowness, and the heaviness of Lewis’ battle and sounds almost anticipatory of the end. The album, as Lewis says, is “an offering of hope for anyone going through a dark tunnel.”
Photo by Rachel Brennecke.
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