As I may have mentioned in a previous blog post, my father and mother each told me (separately) that when I was an infant, I would always cry when they sang “Good Night, Irene” to me as a lullaby.
If that is true, I’m not sure why they kept singing it to me (maybe to see if — yet again — it would move me to tears?)
I recorded it with pianist Doug Hammer when we were working on a show called “Songs About Parents and Children.”
I used to think that it was written by Rodgers & Hammerstein, but it turns out — as you may already know — that it was written by Richard Rodgers after Oscar had died (from stomach cancer on August 23, 1950 at his beloved Bucks County farm in Pennsylvania).
They are a well-known songwriting team based in New York City, and they have crafted a bunch of stand-alone songs — along with entire musicals — which are beloved by performers.
A few of their NYC-area hits include “I Like Them (Bald),” “Alto’s Lament,” and “Taylor, The Latte Boy.”
Jinny Sagorin and I recorded their song “There’s Nothing I Wouldn’t Do” with pianist Doug Hammer a few years ago.
Originally from South Africa, Jinny has lived in the Boston area for the past two decades.
In recent years Jinny has expanded beyond musical theater and cabaret to becoming a cantor.
We both share a sense that music can be very sacred (as well as silly, sexy, heartfelt, and open-minded).
Will (with broken elbow), Jinny and Doug — Photo by Jeremy Schmahmann
And performing in a synagogue, library, church or retirement community can be just as satisfying as performing in a bar or club — although we have both done plenty of that, too!
I first met Jinny when I was co-hosting an open mic at The Cambridge Center For Adult Education in Harvard Square (where I also was employed as an events manager and PR person).
Eventually we put together an entire program of songs called LIFE MATTERS.
Jinny also invited me to perform as a special guest when she debuted her solo CD, IT’S FOR YOU, to a sold-out crowd at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston.
And she has performed many of my original songs when I have done showcases of my own work.
In addition to being a performing artist, Jinny is also a visual artist.
Here’s an example of a work of art she created for an annual show called ART/Word in which she is a regular participant.
Thank you to Marcy and Zina for writing this song.
Thank you to Jinny and Doug for recording it with me.
PS: If you feel like streaming this song on your favorite digital music platform, please click here for links.
PPS: I haven’t mentioned the current challenges here on planet earth (wars, heat waves, forest fires, floods, spreading diseases, rising costs, lack of food/fertilizer/fuel, political upheaval, etc.) in recent blog posts.
But I remain vividly aware of them.
And I continue to find inspiration and hope from the courageous candidates and hard-working GOTV (get out the vote) organizations at work around the USA.
As you are probably well aware, there are a bunch of very inspiring human beings stepping up at the local, state and national levels these days.
Let’s support them — with tiny donations of time and/or money— as much as we are able.
I recorded this sweet song as part on an hour-long program of music written for — or strongly identified with — Judy Garland.
It was written by Burton Lane and Ralph Freed for her and Mickey Rooney to perform in the 1941 MGM movie BABES ON BROADWAY.
I learned from Wikipedia that the lyricist, Ralph Freed, was the baby brother of producer/lyricist Arthur Freed, who co-wrote the song “This Heart Of Mine” which I featured in a recent blog post,
Having spent a fair amount of time — especially during the summer — in Manhattan as a child and teenager, I savor all of the geographical references in the lyrics.
I only wish they had mentioned Chock Full o’ Nuts, my favorite place to get a burger (with ketchup, mustard and relish) plus a big orange drink — which was a mixture of orange juice, sugar and water, I think, churning endlessly in a big, glass dispenser until it was sold to thirsty customers.
Chock Full o’ Nuts started during the roaring ’20s as a chain of — no surprise — nut shops.
But when the Depression hit, the owner William Black pivoted and turned his stores into lunch counters where — according to Wikipedia — one could buy a cup of coffee and a cream-cheese-with-chopped-nuts sandwich for five cents.
Jackie Robinson with a fellow Chock Full o’ Nuts employee
And his coffee proved to be so popular that he started selling it for people to make at home or in their office.
William Black — whose last name was originally Schwartz (which means black in Yiddish) — seems to have been a somewhat progressive employer.
Most of his company’s cooks and waitstaff were African-American, and when baseball superstar Jackie Robinson retired from playing, he became a vice president and director of personnel at Chock Full o’ Nuts.
Mr. Black was married to two female singers (not at the same time…) who performed his company’s radio and TV jingles. His second wife also became very involved with their family’s philanthropic efforts.
They gave millions of dollars to medical research and helped to start the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.
And there is even a William Black medical research building at Columbia University’s medical center (Mr. Black was a Columbia alum…)
But back to “How About You?”.
Burton Lane
Burton Lane was a very successful composer — originally from Manhattan — who worked at various movie studios in California.
Interspersed with his time in Hollywood, he co-wrote songs for Broadway shows including FINIAN’S RAINBOW (with Yip Harberg) and ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER (with Alan Jay Lerner).
He is also one of several people who claim credit for bringing Judy Garland to the attention of the powers-that-be at MGM after he saw her perform with her two older sisters at the Paramount Theatre in Los Angeles.
So not only do we have Mr. Lane to thank for the great songs he co-wrote, we also can (at least partially) thank him for helping to bring Judy Garland and her extraordinary gifts as a performer to a much wider audience.
I would also like to thank Doug Hammer for his playful piano impulses and painstaking production skills as well as Stephen C. Fischer for his patient and collaborative graphic design work.
If you’d like to stream our version of “How About You?” you can click here.
Every stream, every “like,” and every “save” encourages the mysterious algorithms of the digital music platforms to share a recording with other potential listeners.
Here’s the graphic for “How About You?” which features what was probably my last professional headshot as a teen performer in NYC.
One final note…
As I was drafting this blog post, the New York Knicks were engaged in an extraordinary series of basketball games which culminated in them becoming NBA champions.
I especially like New York in June when the Knicks win the NBA playoffs after a 53 year drought!
How about you?
Although I am not a big basketball fan, I became swept up in the drama and virtuosity of the NBA playoffs.
Twice I went to bed early — thinking the Knicks had lost — and awoke to discover that they had triumphed.
Wow!
Oh, me of little faith…
Since their victory, I have been savoring the enthusiasm of the Knicks’ fans — in NYC and around the country.
Jalen Brunson
And I love what one of their star players Jalen Brunson said following their record-breaking comeback from 29 points down to win game four.
“You’re allowed to think about the worst possible scenario, but you gotta go out there and do something about it.”
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Those are great words to live by…
Thank you, Knicks, for bringing millions of us — from many different political and cultural and ethnic backgrounds — together during this challenging time here on planet earth.
You gave — and continue to give — us hope and joy and inspiration.
And THANK YOU to everyone who is willing to read and listen to yet another one of my blog posts.
Today’s blog post is made possible by our copyright laws.
Cole Porter’s terrific song “Let’s Do It” entered the public domain last year.
So my friends Carole Bundy, Molly Ruggles and I can now share a very fun version which includes some updated lyrics (by Molly and Carole) as well as an entirely new section of the song — written in the style of Cole Porter — by Molly.
Molly created the first draft of this song for a performance with her friend Kate Stringer at Club Cafe in Boston during which I sang some harmony.
Then — after Kate moved to London — the song evolved a bit when Molly, Carole and I added it to our repertoire.
Adding new sections to pre-existing songs is one of Molly’s many creative super powers.
But it can create copyright challenges — unless one is able to get permission from whomever owns the rights to the song.
But now, because “Let’s Do It” (which was first published in 1928) has entered the public domain, we are allowed to take creative liberties with it.
Molly, me and Carole in Maine
“Let’s Do It” was one of several hit songs from Cole Porter’s first big Broadway success — a show called PARIS.
He had been writing songs for a couple of decades — starting in Peru, Indiana (where he grew up the only surviving child in a very wealthy family) and continuing in Massachusetts (where he was valedictorian of his class at a prep school, Worcester Academy) and in Connecticut (where he attended Yale).
According to Wikipedia, he wrote hundreds of songs at Yale — two of which continue to be sung at football games.
He also wrote the songs for four entire musicals which were performed in New Haven and also on tour at college clubs during vacation breaks.
After he graduated from Yale, Mr.Porter pretended to study law at Harvard (to satisfy his very wealthy grandfather, who was paying for his education) while actually studying music and writing songs — and rooming with future a Secretary of State, Dean Acheson, who was then an avid law student.
Cambridge borders East Arlington (where I live), and I love walking through Harvard Law School — which happens to be next to Harvard’s music department — and thinking about Mr. Porter treading the same streets a hundred years ago.
Although he lived an extravagant life, the second half of it was filled with chronic pain due to a horseback riding accident on Long Island.
This accident (the horse he was riding fell and rolled on top of him) left him with multiple leg fractures which never healed well…
Molly, Carole and I leading a service at the UU Church in Milton, MA
He endured many corrective surgeries over the following decades and eventually had the lower part of one of his legs amputated.
Argh!
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Although some of his earlier songs had been interpolated into other shows, Mr. Porter did not have his own hit show until he was 36 years old.
But — in the midst of much revelry and travel — he could be a very disciplined person.
He continued working on music during his 20s and early 30s while simultaneously leading a life of extraordinary luxury — renting historic palazzos in Venice during the summer and hiring entire ballet companies to entertain at his parties.
He even wrote a jazz-inflected music score for a ballet production in Paris which pre-dates George Gershwin’s much more famous Rhapsody In Blue.
Carole, Molly and I are not living lives of extraordinary luxury, but we ARE acutely aware of how fortunate/privileged we are to be able to devote time and energy to making music during this very challenging — and at time horrifying — time on planet earth.
A deep breath of gratitude in.
And a deep breath of gratitude out.
Thank you to Cole Porter for writing “Let’s Do It.”
Thank you to our copyright laws for allowing creative material to go into the public domain after a certain number of years.
And a special THANK YOU to everyone who has been streaming, liking, and playlisting our “Molly, Will & Carole” music!
We’re up to 2500 total streams on Spotify and 6500 total streams on Pandora (which are the only two music-listening platforms I currently keep tabs on…)
I have recently learned that streaming activity on the very first day of a song’s release strongly influences the future algorithmic behavior of that song on that platform — ie: whether a song is recommended to other potential listeners.
So if you might be willing to click here to stream “Let’s Do It” on the platform of your choice — and maybe even “like” it and add it to a playlist — we would be very grateful.
I will end with one final THANK YOU to you for reading and listening to yet another one of my blog posts!
So far this winter I’ve managed to avoid being infected by the flu, strep, Covid, RSV, and the common cold — all of which are leaping from one human host to the next here in the Boston area.
Maybe it’s because I remain an ardent wearer of face masks whenever I am indoors — leading Music Together classes, performing at retirement communities, shopping for groceries at Trader Joe’s, riding public transportation, or going to see a movie.
Deep breath of gratitude in.
Deep breath of gratitude out.
As some of you may be aware from news I’ve shared on Facebook, I was invited to participate in a 50th anniversary reunion concert with (most of) the remaining members of the original cast of the musical PIPPIN at a nightclub called 54 Below in the theater district of Manhattan.
I wrote a blog post in 2016 about my time as a standby for the role of Theo in PIPPIN when I was ten years old which you can read by clicking here if you are curious.
After I wrote that post — in which I wondered if any of the original cast members remembered me — I nosed around online to try and find contact information for any other original cast members.
I found one listed as a teacher at a performing arts school in Colorado — with what appeared to be a current email address — and sent her a message.
I was very touched to receive an enthusiastic reply in which said that she DID remember me!
She also shared that the remaining members of the cast stayed in regular contact — and that she specifically recalled a conversation we once had backstage about how I felt no pressure from my parents to stay in show business as I grew older.
I don’t remember that conversation, but it rings true…
Neither of my parents had any experience with the advertising/entertainment industries, but my mom had grown up in Queens, NY, and every summer my siblings and I and my mother would return to her childhood home and stay with my grandmother for a couple of months while my father stayed at our home in Washington, DC (he worked for the Department of Agriculture) and commuted up on the weekends to visit.
In 2017 I also wrote a blog post about how much I loved my summers at 47-39 197th Street — right on the border between Bayside and Flushing — and what it was like doing commercials, voice-overs, TV shows and movies as a child and teenager which you can read by clicking here if you are curious.
After I learned that I’d been cast as a standby in PIPPIN, I remember sitting on the brick stoop in front of my grandmother’s house and thinking very excitedly that my life was about to change…
And it did.
I think my parents said “Yes” to me being a standby A) because they thought it would be fascinating to see how a Broadway musical is put together; B) because PIPPIN would be previewing at the newly-constructed Kennedy Center in Washington, DC (where we had lived for seven years); and C) because most Broadway musicals end up failing…
But PIPPIN did not fail, and I ended up living year-round at my grandmother’s house — which meant that I could audition a lot more (for commercials, voice-overs, made-for-TV movies, and plays), and my career as a child performer took off.
Until it gently crashed back to earth a few years later, and I entered a prep school called Hotchkiss.
But that is another story.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
In the fall of 2021 I was surprised to be contacted by a journalist who was writing a book about how PIPPIN came to be created.
After stressing to her that I had just been a ten-year-old standby for the very small role of Theo and probably had nothing important or insightful to share with her, she still wanted to interview me.
So we had a pleasant phone call and — to my surprise…. as well as my chagrin — I ended up being quoted a couple of times in her book, MAGIC TO DO, which came out in October 2022 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of PIPPIN opening at the Imperial Theatre in NYC.
My third PIPPIN-related surprise was being contacted last summer by the original standby for the role of Pippin, Walter Willison, who has had an illustrious career in the entertainment industry.
He told me he was organizing a 50th Anniversary musical event at a lovely club in Manhattan called 54 Below which would feature original members of the cast.
And he wondered if I’d be willing to join this musical adventure.
I reminded him that I had only been the standby for the role of Theo.
But he very patiently persisted with his invitation, and — with equal amounts of excitement and fear — I finally agreed.
Another deep breathe in.
And deep breath out.
I found his invitation to be quite profound because I have had an anxiety dream at least once a year for the past fifty years in which I am asked to fill in at the last minute for one of the cast members in PIPPIN.
In this nightmare I gamely attempt to learn (and/or recall) the necessary dialogue, choreography and blocking while being rushed into someone else’s costume…
Then the curtain rises, and I hit the stage with everyone else, and I try to keep up with what’s happening all around me…
And then I wake up in a cold sweat.
So Walter was basically inviting me to live out this dream/nightmare in real life with most of the remaining original cast members as my companions!
One more deep breath in…
And deep breath out..
Long story short… the four performances at 54 Below happened earlier this week — and were very well received!
PIPPIN Reunion cast at 54 Below (I am on the very left side of this illustrious lineup!) — Photo by Stephen C. Fischer
I will probably write at least one more blog post about the experience — which was full of many funny moments, poignant moments, loving moments, anxiety-inducing moments, joyful moments and much, much more!
I am deeply grateful to have been asked to participate — and very curious to see if I ever have my PIPPIN-related anxiety dream/nightmare again…
Thank you for reading another one of my blog posts.
Thank you to Walter Willison for the HUGE amount of work he did to make these performances a reality — and for inviting me to participate!
Thank you to all of the beloved original cast members of PIPPIN who welcomed me back into their hearts — forty nine years after I had outgrown my role as standby for Theo and left the cast.
Thank you to the people whom I did not already know — music director Michael Lavine plus performers Joy Franz and Aaron Lee Battle) who also participated in this musical adventure.
Thank you to Doug Hammer and Mike Callahan for recording “Magic To Do” with me as part of a show we did at Scullers Jazz Club in Boston called WILL LOVES STEVE — which featured songs written by Stephen Schwartz, Stephen Sondheim, Steve Sweeting, Stevie Wonder, Stephen Flaherty, Cat Stevens and Steve Schalchlin.
And thank you to Stephen Schwartz for writing all the songs for PIPPIN — which people around the world (including me) love to sing!
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find many songs and learn more about my musical life here on planet earth if you are curious.
Any song you “like” or add to one of your playlists will greatly improve the algorithmic activity of my music there.
I hope you stay well.
And I welcome any comments you may be inspired to write.
I will close with a photo of the moon over Central Park which I took as I was walking up Broadway at Columbus Circle after our second afternoon of rehearsals…
BACA is a humble and surprisingly resilient non-profit group which a bunch of us helped to start over 25 years ago.
And it is still going strong — an ongoing labor of love — due to the efforts of a generous and ever-evolving group of singers, musicians, songwriters and music fans who serve on its board, bless them.
Eventually we started performing together as “The Will & Lil Show” — co-creating two different shows of music and ideas before she moved from the Boston area back to her homeland of Philadelphia.
Our first show focused on the subject of water — in rivers, clouds, oceans, harbors, showers, wading pools, and even our own metabolisms.
We followed that with a show called We Are What We Eat — A Potluck Cabaret which featured songs about eating, serving and preparing food such as Cole Porter’s “The Tale of the Oyster,” Bernstein, Comden and Green’s “I Can Cook, Too,” Stephen Sondheim’s “The Ladies Who Lunch,” the Sherman Brothers’ “Feed The Birds,” and Stephen Schwartz’s “It’s An Art.”
The show began with Lillian and me on stage chopping and slicing and preparing various finger-foods while audience members were finding their seats.
Once everyone had arrived, we began singing a song (in the player at the start of the blog post) from William Finn’s musical “March Of The Falsettos” while serving the audience what we had been preparing onstage.
It was a lot of fun.
The original lyrics for “Making A Home” included some references to food — to which we added a few more.
Recently I was happy to find a computer disk which contained some of our original PR photos as well as a script for our food show.
Here’s a list of food-related items that we used during the show:
As you can probably extrapolate from this list of props, we covered a lot of ground in this show — from the processed food industry (for which Lillian’s mother had once consulted) to food norms in different cultures (Lillian has traveled a lot) to my past as a child actor doing commercials for various food products (such as Ring Ding Juniors, Lifesavers, Imperial margarine, and Oreo cookies).
Here’s an excerpt from what we said after we sang “Making A Home” while serving appetizers to the audience.
Lil: “Will and I love to cook.”
Will: “And we love to feed other people what we have cooked.”
Lil: “And we love to eat; so this show was a no-brainer.
Will: “Eating is something that is easy to take for granted.
Photo by Stephen C. Fischer
Lil: “We do it several times a day, often out of habit or while we are focused on something else.”
Will: “But eating is really a magical process. Think about it… radiation from a nearby star is captured by plants who transform it into something that we can absorb into our bodies, which becomes… us.”
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Over twenty years later I am still amazed by how life works here on planet earth!
Near the end of the show Lillian tied me to a chair while singing “Have An Eggroll Mr. Goldstein” from Gypsy and stuffing all sorts of delicious, cut-up fruit into my mouth.
Then we sang “You’re The Cream In My Coffee” while throwing pie plates full of non-dairy whipped topping in each other’s faces.
Our encore was “Life Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries.”
This delightful anthem was written by Lew Brown (lyrics) and Ray Henderson (music) for Ethel Merman to sing in George White’s Scandals of 1931 after she had rejected another song they had wanted her to perform.
I am very thankful that Ms. Merman knew — when she was still in the early years of her extraordinary career the entertainment industry — what kind of song she could and couldn’t deliver to an audience.
Otherwise Ray and Lew might not have written this musical gem.
Thank you for reading and listening to this somewhat light-hearted blog post.
I will undoubtedly return to more serious topics in the future.
Today I have been inspired by a statement currently circulating (I hope accurately) on FaceBook from a Hopi Indian Chief named White Eagle.
“This moment humanity is experiencing can be seen as a door or a hole. The decision to fall in the hole or walk through the door is up to you.
“If you consume the news 24 hours a day, with negative energy, constantly nervous, with pessimism, you will fall into this hole. But if you take the opportunity to look at yourself, to rethink life and death, to take care of yourself and others, then you will walk through the portal…
“Don’t feel guilty for feeling blessed in these troubled times. Being sad or angry doesn’t help at all…
Lillian with her beloved dog Albee!
“Show resistance through art, joy, trust and love.”
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Thank you to Lillian Rozin for being one of my favorite collaborators… and one of my favorite chefs, too!
Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing piano AND recording the rehearsal from which we recently selected and mixed these songs.
Thank you to Ray Brown and Lew Henderson for writing “LIfe Is Just A Bowl Of Cherries” — and to Ethel Merman for inspiring them to do so.
Thank you to William Finn for writing “Making A Home.”
You are always welcome to visit my website — where you can find more songs from The Will & Lil Show celebrating food.
Or you can find me singing — with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano — on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Musicand other digital music platforms.
More than two months has passed since my last blog post.
I started writing several drafts, but none seemed worthy of completion…
This morning, however, I awoke from very sweet dreams — about returning to my elementary school as an adult — and started the day by stretching on our back porch.
A mockingbird was singing a wonderfully idiosyncratic song from a nearby roof, and the sky above me was totally blue.
Many birds passed high in the sky — swallows swooping back and forth (maybe catching bugs?), a pair of ducks en route from one body of water to another, some cooing doves, a bright red cardinal, and a seagull.
It was first recorded by actress and singer Karen Akers in 1994, and since then it has been performed by a bunch of Broadway folks including Ben Platt, Betty Buckley, Brian Lane Green, and Sutton Foster.
The Cambridge Center For Adult Education
When I recorded it with pianist Doug Hammer, I was still working as the assistant director of a non-profit in Harvard Square — the Cambridge Center for Adult Education — and longing to break free from my day job so that I could devote myself to making music.
I had started at the CCAE by volunteering to help with a new musical series that the PR director, a wonderful singer named Tracy Gibbs, was putting together called The Cabaret Connection.
My offer to help transformed into a part-time job overseeing not only The Cabaret Connection but also another series called The Jazz Chair and a few other special events.
Then I began sharing responsibility for publicizing these events, and when Tracy left for a new job, I was offered a full-time position as PR director for the entire CCAE.
My plan was to have a part-time day job so that I could continue to do plenty of music on the side.
But now my day job would INCLUDE music — and I would gain new perspectives (such as what it was like to have performers contacting me about the possibility of being booked into one of our musical series…)
So I said, “Yes.”
After a few years, our development director left, and I took over her responsibilities as well.
Eventually I became assistant director and helped to bridge the transition between the retirement of our beloved executive director and the arrival of his successor.
So even though many of my more psychologically astute (and cherished) co-workers had seen the writing on the wall regarding the pros and cons of our new executive director and had found new employment elsewhere, I had remained loyal (or some might say “stuck”) to the longtime CCAE community of teachers, board members, students and volunteers.
Being laid off might have been the only way to get me to leave.
And dare to focus on music.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Photo by Nora Dybdal
So I signed up to learn how to be a Music Together teacher — which some of my musical peers had thought I might enjoy.
Now I listen to “Flight” with a very different perspective from when I first learned it — and was feeling such a longing to break free…
Now my time is completely my own — to vision, to plan, to shape, to fill!
I have nothing I want to escape.
My only deadlines are the minor ones I give myself AND the major ones related to climate change which loom ever larger and more terrifying with each passing day of denial and inaction.
It reminds me of a sailboat tacking to and fro in response to the ever-changing winds.
However, we human beings were not satisfied with sailboats.
So we created the motorboat, which zooms, noisily and relentlessly — oblivious to what it might run over, hit, injure, or disrupt — in a straight line from point A to point B.
Life before fossil fuels seems like it was much less linear.
Paths and roads followed the curves of hills and streams — rather than being bulldozed or dynamited to create the most efficient and convenient line of travel.
I saw this same phenomenon in the sky this morning — with birds swooping in curvy lines while far above them a jet plane left a perfectly straight line of moisture and toxic emissions in the sky…
The desire to fly — and perhaps to fly away — has been with us human beings for thousands of years.
I often think about the myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus — who enthusiastically flew too high and too close to the sun (forgetting or ignoring his father’s warning about how the wax adhering the feathers of his marvelously-constructed wings could melt…) and fell to his death in the Mediterranean sea.
Oftentimes our human culture in the 21st century seems to be soaring ever higher on a frantic, teen-aged exuberance for relentless, profit-driven innovation and stimulation.
We ignore wise warnings about how our fossil-fuel-powered desires (for 24/7 computer functionality, for food at any hour of the day or night (much of it shipped from hundreds or even thousands of miles away), for the ability to travel via motorcycle, car, motorboat, ocean liner, bus, train, or plane wherever we want (and as much as we can afford… or choose to put on a credit card), for alternative currencies, etc. are leading us faster and faster towards global catastrophe.
One would think that any one of the challenges we have experienced in recent years here in the USA — flooding of major cities, changing weather patterns which have led to increased wildfires/hurricanes/tornadoes, as well as a year-long viral pandemic — might lead us to re-think and change our habits of consumption.
And might lead us to listen to scientists with a deepened respect.
Denial is indeed an extraordinary human phenomenon.
I certainly understand why the likely scenarios — such as famine, wars over water and arable land, vast migrations of desperate refugees, more epidemics of diseases — are too terrifying for most of us to set aside any time to contemplate.
“Mars sucks. Its weather sucks. Its distance sucks. Its atmosphere sucks. The little water it has…sucks. It has sucked for billions of years and will suck for billions more…
You know what doesn’t suck?
Me, earth.
I have life.
I have vast oceans and lush forests.
I have rivers to swim and air to breath.
But the way I’m being treated — that part sucks.
You use me and pollute me.
You overheat me.
You use every resource I have, and return very little back from where it came.
And then you dream of Mars — a hellhole — a barren, desolate wasteland you can’t set foot on fast enough.
Why not use some of that creative energy and billions of dollars on saving me? You know, the planet that’s giving you what you need to live right now.
The only part of this posting with which I don’t agree is the idea that earth needs to be saved.
I am pretty confident that planet earth — having already withstood billions of years of evolutionary changes — will be OK.
We human beings are the ones whose existence is at stake — along with the millions of other forms of life (such as birds and bees and fungi and bacteria and trees and grasses and turtles and whales and algae and shrimp and wolves and bison) which are vital links in the amazing web of life here on planet earth which we are in the process of altering and destroying.
“Don’t give up the ship — even when you feel it sinking and you don’t know what to do…” writes David Friedman in his great song, “Help Is On The Way.”
I found myself thinking about this song when I heard Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer say “Help is on the way!” on TV after helping to pass the American Rescue Plan.
Although I have not been able to confirm this from searching the internet, I think David Friedman created this song during a previous plague — HIV/AIDS.
I wrote about David in a post three years ago which you can read if you are curious by clicking here.
Some were willing and able to ignore the threat of HIV/AIDS when it appeared — as some are still attempting to do with COVID-19.
However, HIV/AIDS left a vast trail of shock and grief for many human beings — as COVID-19 is now doing…
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I thought of this song again when I was listening to yet another medical expert pleading with us to continue to wear masks, wash our hands, and practice physical dustancing.
“We have the football on the five-yard line,” he said, “and we’ve got to hang in there so that we don’t lose possession of the ball when we are so close to making a touchdown and winning the game.”
His football metaphor was inspired by the fact that many states in the USA are currently relaxing health measures even as new — more communicable and possibly more lethal —varieties of the COVID-19 virus are spreading exponentially around the country.
Apparently we are now in a contest to see if we can vaccinate enough people before we are overtaken by yet another tidal wave of infections due in part to these new genetic variations and in part to us human beings letting down our guard.
My heart goes out in particular to the health care workers who — amazingly — continue to care for people infected with Covid whether the infected people had chosen to take Covid seriously in the first place or not…
I’m not a healthcare worker or someone with a job that requires interaction with the public or a senior citizen.
So I’m wearing a mask when I go outside for my daily walks and waiting patiently — as I know many of us are — until I become eligible to get vaccinated.
Singer Bobbi Carrey, pianist Doug Hammer and I recorded this song many years ago as part of a musical program called IN GOOD COMPANY which explored working and business and capitalism using songs and stories.
I consider it to be a quintessential “helps me get out of bed in the morning” song.
And I’ve been needing these sorts of songs in recent weeks — because I’ve been feeling rather crabby.
Maybe it’s the rising spring energy of the northern hemisphere as we struggle — like bulbs — to push our way through the thawing soil towards the sun.
Maybe it’s the fact that a pandemic which we all thought might last a month or two has now stretched past the one year mark…
Maybe it’s an at-times-overwhelming sense of empathy for all of the folks who have already died due to Covid-19 — AND for their grieving family + friends.
Maybe it’s a sense of frustration that we human beings seem to have done an extremely poor job of teaching one another about the formidable power of exponential growth.
One doubles and becomes two.
Two doubles and becomes four.
Four doubles and becomes eight.
Eight doubles and becomes sixteen.
Sixteen doubles and becomes thirty-two.
Thirty-two doubles and becomes sixty-four.
Sixty-four doubles and becomes one hundred-and-twenty eight.
And sooner than one might think possible, the total rises into the thousands, then millions, then billions…
Understanding exponential growth deepens one’s respect/humility/awe/terror for how a virus left un-checked spreads exponentially through a host population — and thus has vastly more opportunities to mutate into new varieties as a result…
This is why we need to be distributing COVID-19 vaccines to every country in the world — even countries such as Tanzania, led by a Covid-denying leader who recently died after an 18-day period of ill health…officially attributed to a heart condition and unofficially speculated to have been Covid-related.
Clearly it is a huge challenge to change anyone’s mind when they have very strong convictions about a particular topic.
Here in the USA the Covid-related death of a newly elected, incoming, 41-year-old congressman from Louisiana — Luke Letlow — has done little to change the mindset and behavior of some of his Republican colleagues regarding the severity of the risk of Covid infection.
I don’t entirely believe the message of this song — although I WANT to believe it because it gives me hope.
My favorite line is probably “from friends we may not have met yet.”
I feel that way about some of my fellow bloggers, and also about some of the photographers on Pixabay.
Now that I have started including their names underneath their beautiful photographs, I have begun noticing that certain photographers have taken a LOT of the photos I’ve used in past blog posts.
Thank you to Doug Hammer and to Bobbi Carrey for their heartful musicianship.
Thank you to all the “friends we may not have met yet” — who are growing our food, developing new vaccines, taking care of us in hospitals, working in grocery stores, delivering packages, etc. etc. etc.
Thank you to Pixabay and all of the photographers who generously share their images there — and allow me to travel far and wide around this extraordinary planet earth without leaving my living room.
Thank you to the cardinals who have been singing and singing and singing in my neighborhood in recent days.
And I am realizing that it’s been over a month since my last blog post.
Why?
Well… I stumbled into an opportunity to be interviewed by an old acquaintance who writes about the arts for a New England-based magazine.
And after I learned that my mini-profile was going to run in their March/April issue, I decided it was time to re-do my website — which had remained functional but increasingly antiquated in recent years.
So February was devoted to researching website design options, choosing a company, and learning how to use this company’s cornucopia of templates and design features.
After all sorts of challenges (which I may share in a future blog post as a case study in hiking up a new learning curve…) I am happy — and relieved — to report that my new site is now up and running at my old website address: willsings.com.
In the process of transferring information from my old site to this new one, I had the opportunity to reflect upon the past twenty years of my musical life — which has been a very sweet and slightly surprising experience.
I had forgotten, for example, exactly how much media coverage I had garnered in past years… and how often certain angels in our local media had written about various musical undertakings, concerts, recordings, collaborations, etc.
I also discovered how much I still like various recordings I helped to make in past years.
And this new website makes it relatively easy to create separate pages for all of them, which I can continue to update and improve as time allows.
Deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Lots of opportunities to practice feeling grateful!
I recorded the musical selection at the top of this blog post with pianist Doug Hammer on his Schimmel grand piano a few years ago when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs created for Disney movies.
These three songs were written by the Sherman Brothers — Robert and Richard — for the magical movie Mary Poppins.
Recent weather — very cold with 30 mph winds! —reminded me of this medley.
As usual I have visited the wonderful photographic website Pixabay as well as a new one called Unsplash (when Pixabay was not functioning well) to find some images to grace this blog post and uplift my spirit.
So far the only sign of spring I have seen is ONE snowdrop which has managed to push up through the earth in our tiny front yard and bloom.
Amazing!
Photo by Will McMillan.
Inside the house, a pot of hyacinth bulbs I bought last winter from Trader Joe’s — and then left in the sun on the back porch all summer — has experienced a glorious re-birth.
They are very fragrant.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Hurrah!
Spring may indeed return to New England…
This three-song medley is one of many recordings that Doug and I have been finding in his sonic archives — and have been fixing and mixing every Friday afternoon via Zoom.
There is a tiny lyric bobble in this recording which we will re-record when I am vaccinated and Doug is ready to welcome human beings back into his studio.
My favorite song in this medley is the last one — “Let’s Go Fly A Kite.”
I was reminded when looking for images of kites that there are also raptors named kites.
So I am including a photo of this magnificent bird as well.
Even though I live in a suburb of Boston which does not have a lot of green space, I am delighted to see hawks flying overhead on a surprisingly regular basis as I walk around town.
I think this is partly because I do not use a smart phone — so I tend to be looking at what is actually going on around me more than many of my fellow humans — who often seem to be living in a parallel universe defined by their phone.
Last week I may have even seen a bald eagle fly around a cemetery where I like to walk which overlooks a neighboring town’s lake.
As many of my fellow bloggers often remind me, there are few things better than spending time outside in/with the natural world!
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I released a new recording at the beginning of March — “Plant A Radish” from the musical The Fantasticks by Harvey Schmidt (music) and Tom Jones (lyrics).
Now I am looking forward to seeing how many of the crocus bulbs I planted last fall have survived the hungry — and deserving — animals who amazingly manage to survive each winter living outdoors.
And I am waiting for another (warmer) windy day to call up my neighbors and go to a local playing field where we can enjoy a well-masked, kite-flying + pizza picnic.
Thank you to all the wonderful photographers at Pixabay and Unsplash whom I decided I needed to respect by taking the time to credit by name (and whose credits I wish I could figure how to center under their photos…)
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sublime piano playing and archiving and engineering and mixing and mastering.
Thank you to the Sherman Brothers for writing so many great songs during the course of their impressive career.
Thank you to my friends in Toronto who gave me a slightly used but still very functional laptop computer several years ago — which has allowed me to blog, lead music classes via Zoom, create a new website, etc.
Thank you to planet earth for managing to support as much life as she does — even as we human beings continue to rip apart, poison, and contaminate ecosystems right, left and center with our wildly hubristic over-confidence and greed.
Photo by Will McMillan
Thank you for — and to — the WordPress community.
The illness of a fellow blogger has reminded me in recent days of how oddly intimate — and deeply supportive — the WordPress community can be.
So thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.
I am writing this blog post as I watch many inaugural events on TV.
So far everything has gone well.
For this I am deeply grateful.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
The song for this blog post, “New Words,” was written by Maury Yeston — a professor at Yale who also created beautiful songs for the Broadway musicals NINE and TITANIC.
I first heard it sung by a woman named Andrea Marcovicci at Town Hall in New York City.
She also recorded it, along with a bunch of other great songs by contemporary songwriters, on a CD called NEW WORDS.
I performed it as part of an evening of SONGS ABOUT PARENTS AND CHILDREN, and again as part of a cycle of songs I shared at my 25th high school reunion.
Then last year this version gracefully jumped out of my archives of past rehearsals with pianist Doug Hammer— and I decided I would wait until after our new president was inaugurated to release it.
After four years of a certain kind of leadership, I have been hungry for a new tone…
A new sense of respect…
A new vision for the future…
And new words…
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Ahhhhh….
Yes.
New words!
I have been told — and sometimes have experienced with my own eyes and ears — that underneath anger and acting out and conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios and threatening comments and violence and all sorts of drama is simply…
Fear.
And pain.
Pain from past hurts…
Past losses…
Past disrespects…
Past disappointments…
Past abandonments…
Past abuses of trust…
Past unhappiness of all different shapes and sizes and colors and tastes and smells and densities…
Yes.
Pain.
And fear.
I breathe them in.
And then I breathe them out.
Ahhhhh….
Like many of us, I’ve experienced new pains and new fears during this past year.
I don’t need to go into any of the details, which I have so far chosen to keep private.
Suffice to say that some of them involve rites of passage related to families and health and time and aging which all of us inevitably experience in one form or another.
And some of them involve things which have happened locally, nationally, and globally.
I have a sense that our new president — who has himself experienced some of the most profound losses a human being can experience — and our new vice-president — who has experienced life as a child of immigrants, as a woman, as a person of color, as an attorney general, and as a US senator — may be able to offer us some new words of consolation.
And comfort.
And acknowledgement.
And justice.
And inspiration.
And healing.
We shall see…
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
As regular readers of my blog already know, in addition to writing postcards to potential voters in swing states and going for long walks in local cemeteries full of trees, I find refuge and inspiration in music.
The song “New Words” reminds me of the Music Together classes I lead each week — which give me much-needed infusions of joy and spontaneity and playfulness and creativity and connectedness and love.
We set aside the worries of the world for 45 precious minutes and are present with each other — having fun clapping and snapping and drumming and waving scarves and shaking rhythm eggs and singing and dancing together — even via Zoom.
Some families have stayed with me for many years — so I experience the happiness of bearing witness to their children’s new movements, new vocabulary, new ideas, new competencies, new stuffed animals, new Lego creations, and, yes, even new siblings!
Part of me is amazed that anyone would dare to bring a child into a world teetering on the brink of so many disasters.
Yet part of me also sees how these precious, blessed beings can awaken a profound sense of responsibility and interconnectedness in their parents.
I hear mothers who are breast-feeding begin to re-think what they are themselves eating — and start to become curious about how and where and by whom our food is grown and processed.
I bear enthusiastic witness to families’ participation in social justice marches, in political activism, in fighting for a more respectful and sustainable future here on planet earth.
And I feel hope.
I feel love.
I do not know if love really IS capable of overcoming systemic racism, economic inequality, environmental degradation, accelerating rates of extinction, ignorant non-mask-wearers, brain-washed insurrectionists, and the myriad other challenges facing us here in the USA.
A very brave man who was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee over 50 years ago once said:
“We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.” (1958)
“We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.” (1963)
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” (1963)
“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” (1963)
And “I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear.” (1967)
Yet ANOTHER deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Ahhhhh….
This song inspires me to stick with love.
Thank you to Maury Yeston for writing it.
Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing such beautiful piano and then helping me to mix and master it via Zoom.
Thank you to the generous photographers at Pixabayfor these glorious images.
And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.
ps: As I was doing my final proof-reading of this blog post, I received an email from one of my favorite former Music Together parents.
She wrote:
“We have been enjoying your music on Spotify! I started following you, and now new songs of yours come up on my new release playlist that Spotify sends out periodically.
Scarlet (her super-sensitive, fairy-like, delightful daughter) especially loves ‘New Words’ — she stopped what she was doing and came over and gave me a hug when it came up on my playlist. She found it so moving, and she didn’t even know it was yours.”
One more deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Ahhhhh…
This is why I do what I do.
If you are curious to learn more about my musical life here on planet earth, you are welcome to visitmy website.
amusicalifeonplanetearth 