Survivors' Anthem Series #7: "Tomorrow" - Aileen Quinn (Annie)
- Shannon Brown
- Feb 4
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 23
The Song I Sang Under My Bed When I Needed Hope
Some survivor anthems are loud.
Some are angry.
Some make you dance.
But some survivor anthems… are the ones you sing in a whisper when you are a child, hiding from something too big, too scary, or too loud.
This is Survivors’ Anthem #7, and it takes me all the way back to my childhood:
“Tomorrow” from the movie Annie
sung by Aileen Quinn
This song wasn’t just a cute movie song to me.
It was hope.
It was comfort.
It was the closest thing to safety my voice could create in a moment when I couldn’t control what was happening around me.
When I Was Scared, I Hid Under My Bed
There were times in my childhood when fights felt like storms.
The kind of storms that shake your whole world.
When voices became loud.
When tension felt sharp in the air.
When fear filled my body before my brain could even catch up.
And when I didn’t know where to go…I would hide under my bed.
I would cover my ears. And I would sing “Tomorrow.”
Over and over.
Not because I was performing.
But because I was surviving.
Because when you’re a child and you can’t make the yelling stop, you find a way to make something else louder inside you. Something gentle. Something safe. Something that reminds you that the world isn’t only this moment.
And “Tomorrow” did that for me.
Why “Tomorrow” Is a Survivor Anthem
“Tomorrow” is a song about believing in light you can’t see yet. It's about the promise of another day.
It’s about telling yourself, even when life is heavy, that the sun will come out again.
And that message is everything to a child who is scared.
That message is everything to a survivor.
Because trauma makes your world feel like the dark is permanent.
But hope says:
No. This isn’t the whole story.
Even if you can’t leave the moment physically… you can still reach for tomorrow emotionally.
That’s what this song helped me do.
This Song Will Always Make Me Think of My Papa
There are songs that feel tied to people. Not because they chose them, but because the memories are stitched into the music like thread.
“Tomorrow” is one of those songs for me. It brings me straight back to my Papa. I would watch Annie when I visited him. Those visits felt like a different world.
And I loved his system… in that sweet, old-fashioned way that only someone like him could do.
He had that little typed book that listed all his VHS tapes in order, each one assigned a number.
And the VHS tapes themselves were labeled with numbers too, made with those old label makers that clicked.
(If you know, you know.)
I used to love flipping through that book, searching for the movie I wanted like it was a treasure map.
And when I found it?
I would find it, cuddle up with him under our favorite quilt, and we would watch it together.
That’s what love looked like to me.
That’s what comfort felt like.
And that’s why “Tomorrow” doesn’t just sound like hope…
It sounds like him.
The Small Things That Saved Us Matter
This series exists because I want survivors to know something:
Sometimes what saved you wasn’t a therapist.
Sometimes it wasn’t a friend.
Sometimes it wasn’t even an adult.
Sometimes what saved you was a movie.
A song.
A stuffed animal.
A quiet routine.
A person who didn’t need to know all the details to give you safety.
A child’s imagination holding a flashlight in the dark.
That’s why I write the way I do in my memoir Because of Jane (available on Amazon). Because the world sees survival as something dramatic and obvious.
But so much of survival is small.
And sacred.
And private.
And children deserve to be honored for how hard they fought just to get through.
I fought with songs.
And “Tomorrow” was one of the biggest.
A Dream I Hold Close
And there’s one more part of this song I want to say out loud, because dreams matter too.
It is a dream of mine to someday sing “Tomorrow” with Aileen Quinn.
The little girl who hid under her bed, covering her ears, whisper-singing that song through fear… could never have imagined a moment like that. But I can imagine it now, a full-circle moment where the voice that helped me survive could hear the voice of the survivor I became.
That would be more than a duet.
That would be visual healing.
A Thank You to Annie — And to Aileen Quinn
To the movie Annie, thank you.
For giving kids like me something hopeful to hold.
And to Aileen Quinn, thank you.
Thank you for giving a voice to hope. Thank you for singing a song that helped a scared little girl believe in the next day.
Your voice carried light.
Your voice carried tomorrow.
And for survivors, that matters more than words can hold.
What’s Next in the Survivors’ Anthem Series
Each Survivors’ Anthem post will include:
a featured song
why it mattered to me
what it helped me survive or process
and a reel where I sing a short part of it while honoring the artist behind it on my authors social media pages
If you’re reading this and you once had a song you clung to as a child…
Please know:
That was not silly.
That was not “dramatic.”
That was your strength.
That was your survival.
And I am proud of you.
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