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Baird, a Norwalk resident who has served as an EMS Duty Supervisor for Darien Post 53, worked until 2 a.m. one night last week to write “I Carry a Candle for You,” which he published on YouTube.
“The song kind of wrote itself and came from the heart,” Baird told Daily Voice on Monday. “I wanted to comfort them, I wanted to use music to do some good in the world and I felt that if I could get this into the hands of the right people, that it might provide some solace.”
The video, which Baird filmed with two iPhones and edited in iMovie, starts with the image of a single candle shedding light on a dark background. Then the background fades to reveal a backdrop of a bookshelf full of candles.
The beginning of the song focuses on the uncertainty that families who had loved ones in the Pulse nightclub faced, not knowing who had survived the attack. And it ends with a message of hope — “Don’t give in to despair, recover and fight.”
Baird said he had the video center around the candles as a message of hope. Candles are a unique symbol as they are strong, yet not entirely resilient to the elements, he said.
“A candle is a powerful thing,” Baird said. “It has the flame that can start a wildfire that can consume enormous things, and it is also very fragile. All it takes is a puff of wind or a drop of water and it’s gone.”
Baird said he hopes that the video reaches the right people in the right places, even though Orlando is going through difficult times after the 49 deaths in the shooting, the deadliest in U.S. history.
“It’s a positive message and my hope is that it will come through, but at the moment there’s nothing but overwhelming grief and chaos in Orlando,” Baird said.
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