Matt Epp, a singer-songwriter with strong roots in the Morden and Lowe Farm, Man., area, recently helped his daughter write her first song.

Luma has been known to make up little melodies or songs, but this is the first time the 5-year-old has sat down to complete a song from start to finish.

"I think we finished that in two hours. You can imagine a 5-year-old has lots of energy and doesn't want to sit down for eight hours or more, so this had to happen quickly, but they were all Luma's ideas," he says.

The song titled Hello, Hello" is all about how she misses seeing her friends every day.

She says, one of my friends sent a message and said that they cried when they heard it.

Matt adds it was moving to see her be so determined to focus for long enough to complete the song.

I had also just got some home recording gear, so for me, the special moment that Luma and I shared was when she was putting on the headphones and learning how to sing into a microphone.

This is something Matt is very familiar with due to his years of performing and recording music. Although he was excited to share her first time recording, the most profound moment was hearing the words of a young child amid the pandemic.

"There's a lot of talk about people, countries, the world, and big things you know, very macro - but when you boil it down, nobody's really hearing from little kids on how they're processing this. Kids this age will not remember life before coronavirus, so what we see here is a really special thing."

"If she wants to say "stay safe, it's going to be okay," it"s because she wants to hear those words for herself. This is why grown-ups and kids alike are being moved to tears from this song because we really all want to see each other be safe, and have someone tell us it's going to be okay. It's quite frightening and you can imagine that the kids are picking up on this energy."

He believes that she wanted to reinforce her sense of community when it's hard to feel those connections in the way we're used to.

Matt says it was also nice to see some of the people Luma is familiar with help record different instrumental elements to the song.