I have chosen to honor it with a sweet song by Frank Loesser which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1952.
Mr. Loesser wrote it for Danny Kaye to perform in a movie about the Danish writer Hans Christian Anderson.
According to Mr. Loesser’s daughter, he did not think highly of this song, and sometimes even used it as an example of songwriting to avoid.
But I love it.
Frank Loesser
Mr. Loesser began his songwriting career as a lyricist and co-wrote a bunch of great songs in the 1930s and 1940s including “Heart and Soul” and “Two Sleepy People” (both with Hoagy Carmichael), “I Don’t Want To Walk Without You” (with Jule Styne) and “See What The Boys In The Back Room Will Have” (with Friedrich Hollaender).
The first hit song for which he wrote both words and music was “Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition” during WWII.
Loesser ended up writing words and music for the songs in WHERE’S CHARLEY, GUYS AND DOLLS, THE MOST HAPPY FELLA, and HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING (along with a few less successful undertakings).
Some hits from those shows include “Once In Love With Amy,” “Luck Be A Lady,” “I Love You A Bushel and A Peck,” “If I Were A Bell,” “I’ve Never Been In Love Before,” “Somebody, Somewhere,” “Standing On The Corner,” “Joey, Joey, Joey,” “I Believe In You,” and “Brotherhood of Man.”
Mr. Loesser also continued writing songs which were used in movies such as “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Let’s Get Lost,” “Inchworm,” and “Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year.”
And he wrote a few songs which became pop hits without any connection to Broadway or Hollywood, including “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” and “I’d Like To Get You On A Slow Boat To China.”
Danny Kaye, his wife Sylvia Fine, arranger Billy May and Frank Loesser
I have long loved his song “Thumbelina” — and am very happy with this peppy version which Doug Hammer and I recorded quite spontaneously a few years ago when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs written or co-written by Frank Loesser.
I had been thinking I might use it in a Valentine’s-Day-inspired blog post, and then fellow blogger Jennie F. left the following comment regarding my blog post last month:
“Nature is as wondrous as music. Your (hyacinth) bulb flower(ing) says it all… Stay warm, and remember the words of Hans Christian Andersen, “Where words fail, music speaks.”
I had forgotten the exact plot synopsis of THUMBELINA (which I first read as a child), but Wikipedia refreshed my memory:
“Thumbelina is about a tiny girl and her adventures with marriage-minded toads, moles, and cockchafers. She successfully avoids their intentions before falling in love with a flower-fairy prince just her size.”
I had also forgotten that Thumbelina comes into being as a result of the actions of a woman who — longing for a child — plants a barleycorn seed.
Thumbelina then emerges from a barleycorn flower… and the adventure of her life begins.
As a Music Together teacher, I particularly resonate with Mr. Loesser’s lyrical admonition that Thumbelina dance and sing — since that is exactly what I do three mornings per week with a delightful crew of small children + the grown ups (parents, grandparents, and nannies) who love them.
Illustration by Thomas Vilhelm Pederson from original publication of THUMBELINA in 1835
By the time I bike (or take the bus) to class, vacuum the karate studio (the floor of which accumulates a surprising.amount of hair, clipped toenails, cookie fragments, dust etc. plus sand and salt during the winter months), hide the punching bags and karate trophies behind a wall of rolling screens, set up a boombox and instruments, change into my teaching — rather than biking/cleaning/snow shoveling — clothes, welcome families, lead a 45-50 minute class, chat with families after class, and then put away all the stuff I set up an hour earlier, I do not earn very much money per hour.
But the sweetness, playfulness, joy, humor, love and sense of connectedness I experience with my families each week is always a balm for my soul.
And there’s no way to put a price on that!
Leading Music Together classes helps me get out of bed in the morning AND reassures me that the human world is not an irredeemably f–ked up mess about which I can do nothing to help.
And sometimes one of the small humans in my class is inspired to give me a hug at the end of class.
Illustration from a 1914 edition of Han Christian Anderson’s Fairy Tales
When this happens, I feel like I am being visited be an angelic being who is offering me unadulterated love, comfort and gratitude.
It is such an honor to receive one of their hugs.
And sometimes I am offered a hug by one of the grownups in class, too — which I also appreciate and savor.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
These little children are a big reason why I ride my old and raggedy-looking bike rather than drive a car, why I rarely buy new clothes, and why I never travel (especially via airplanes) simply for the sake of going someplace new or warm or trendy.
I live a downwardly mobile life so that the children in my classes might be able to live an ever-so-slightly less chaotic and terrifying life due to the myriad ways that climate change is affecting all of us here on planet earth.
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Another radiant hyacinth bulb from Trader Joe’s
I end this blog post with some of my favorite quotations by the Dalai Lama.
“Our prime purpose in life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
“In our present circumstances, no on can afford to assume that someone else will solve their problems. Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become actively engaged.”
“When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, “Oh, yes — I already have everything that I really need.”
“We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without affection.”
“The problems we face today — violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and so on — are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of sisterhood and brotherhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and for the planet we share.”
“As people alive today, we must consider future generations. A clean environment is a human right like any other. It is therefore part of our responsibility towards others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than we found it.”
“This generation has a responsibility to re-shape the world. Start the task even if it will not be fulfilled in your lifetime. Even if it seems hopeless now, never give up. Offer a positive vision, with enthusiasm and joy, and an optimistic outlook.”
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
“Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
THANK YOU for making it to the end of another one of my blog posts.
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his spritely piano accompaniment and his expert musical production skills.
Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his graphic design (and to the professional photographer in NYC who took this photo of me many decades ago…)
Thank you to Hans Christian Anderson for creating the story of Thumbelina and to Frank Loesser for creating his song “Thumbelina.”
Thank you to the wonderful photographers at Pixabay.
Thank you to the Dalai Lama for his wisdom and inspiration.
And thank you to everyone who has streamed my music on Youtube, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, etc.
Every stream — and especially every thumbs up and/or inclusion in a playlist — helps to improve the likelihood that the clever algorithms of these streaming services will share my music with new listeners.
Thank you to all the folks who continue to visit my blog despite the long gaps between new posts.
I just re-read my last one (written right after our most recent national elections).
It’s pretty grim.
Now we all bear witness to how the campaign promises — and threats — do or don’t become reality in the upcoming days, weeks, months and years.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Johnny Mercer by William Gottlieb (late 1940s…)
Today’s blog post aims to be a little lighter in tone and features a song for which Johnny Mercer wrote both the melody and lyrics.
Most of the time, Mr. Mercer wrote the lyrics to other people’s melodies.
For example, he co-created “Skylark” with Hoagy Carmichael, “Come Rain or Come Shine” with Harold Arlen, “Hooray For Hollywood” with Richard Whiting, “Jeepers Creepers” with Harry Warren, and “Moon River” with Henry Mancini.
Other songs he co-wrote include “You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby,” “In The Cool, Cool, Cool Of The Evening,” “Anyplace I Hang My Hat Is Home,” “One For My Baby (And One More For The Road),” “That Old Black Magic,” “On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe,” “Too Marvelous For Words,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Blues In The Night,” and “I’m Old Fashioned.”
Mr. Mercer was a Southerner, born on November 18, 1909 in Savannah, Georgia. From the 1930s to the 1960s he co-wrote over a thousand songs — for movies and for Broadway shows — and was nominated for 19 Academy Awards, winning four Oscars for best original song.
Fred Astaire (Publicity Photo for DADDY LONG LEGS)
And if it wasn’t enough to write or co-write so many great songs, Johnny also had a successful career as a recording artist himself.
And he co-founded Capital Records.
Yowza!
According to some biographers, he could also be a very mean drunk who developed a reputation for sending beautiful — and apologetic — flower arrangements to people whom he’d insulted at parties the previous night.
He wrote “Something’s Gotta Give” in the 1950s for Fred Astaire to sing in a movie called DADDY LONG LEGS which co-starred a very young Leslie Caron as his eventual love interest.
I am not a fan of 50+ year-old leading men romancing much younger women in movies (or in real life for that matter), but this stereotypical, male chauvinist theme shows no sign of being banished from popular culture.
However, DADDY LONG LEGS did give us a very upbeat song with a few lovely turns of phrase — such as “some heavenly star-spangled night…”
And I realized — after I recorded it — that this song also reminds me of the likelihood that many somethings are gonna give in the upcoming days and weeks and months and years here on planet earth.
Blooming Hyacinth
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I am planning to release a new recording — some originals and some covers — on a monthly basis for the rest of 2025.
And I am hoping to keep my blog posts shorter — and somewhat sweeter — than in previous years.
Here’s a lovely hyacinth bulb, which I bought at our local Trader Joe’s, blooming in my dining room.
I continue to be amazed at how an unpretentious, brownish bulb can — given some water and sunlight — differentiate itself into a vivid green stalk and lavish pink blossoms.
How is it possible?!
It is miraculous — and currently very aromatic!
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I will end with one more recent photograph — this one taken by my older sister of our younger sister’s culinary handiwork at a family gathering earlier this month.
Yum!!!
Eggs Benedict with new asparagus
The eggs were provided by a flock of black Australorp hens whom my sisters take care of on their farm (along with Icelandic sheep, a dog and several cats).
It turns out that chickens are astoundingly attuned to daylight.
As soon as the winter solstice happens each year, egg production by my sisters’ flock begins to rise (having tapered off during the autumn…)
And as soon as the sun starts to go down each day, all of my sisters’ chickens troop back inside their coop and start to roost for the night.
You will probably not be surprised to learn that commercial egg-producing companies (if I am remembering correctly) take advantage of this sensitivity and manipulate the light their hens experience each day to maximize egg production.
One more deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Thank you for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his splendid piano accompaniment — on his glorious Schimmel grand piano — and for his expert musical production skills.
Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his graphic design (and to the professional photographer in NYC who took this photo of me many decades ago…)
Thank you to Johnny Mercer for writing this song — and to Fred Astaire for inspiring him to write it.
And thank you to anyone who is moved to stream my recording of “Something’s Gotta Give” on Youtube, Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Deezer, etc. by clicking here.
Every stream — and especially every thumbs up — helps to improve the likelihood that the mysterious algorithms of these various streaming services will share my music with new listeners!
However, if you are a reader who is feeling less excited and hopeful about the future as a result of last week’s election, my heart goes out to you.
Although I have decided not to read about politics and interact with the media for the time being, my brain — especially when I am lying awake in the middle of the night — keeps remembering things that are likely to be impacted in the next four years:
NATO — and the safety of all the countries bordering Russia…
The health of women I love — and the health of women I will never meet — due to new restrictions about what decisions they and their healthcare providers are allowed to make about their own bodies…
Social security — which I have paid into since I was three years old and which I was planning to start collecting in three years time…
Medicare/Medicaid and other health insurance options — for millions of Americans and for me.
The cost of anything we don’t make or grow in the USA — due to potential new tariffs.
The cost of anything we DO make or grow in the USA — due to the potential prosecution/expulsion of many people who currently harvest our produce, work in our slaughterhouses and meat-packing plants, labor in our restaurants, work on our construction sites, landscape our properties, mow our lawns, blow our leaves, etc. etc. etc.
My two nephews — one approaching draft-age and the other one still eligible to be drafted if we find ourselves in a situation where we need to expand our (already vast) military capabilities.
Long term — and potentially irreversible — environmental consequences due to potential deregulation of rules which currently protect the entire web of life here on planet earth.
Our access and ability to vote, our access to education, our access to public healthcare in the event of another epidemic…
The list goes on and on.
I don’t understand how love and respect factor into any of the above.
I don’t understand how love and respect can withstand — much less overcome — the forces which spread disinformation, which lie, which aim to divide us, which value power and money over honesty and decency.
I hesitate to call those forces evil, but I have been reminded more and more in recent months about a book I read a long time ago by M. Scott Peck called THE PEOPLE OF THE LIE.
is consistently self-deceiving, with the intent of avoiding guilt and maintaining a self-image of perfection
deceives others as a consequence of their own self-deception
projects his or her evils and sins onto very specific targets (scapegoats) while being apparently normal with everyone else
commonly hates with the pretense of love, for the purposes of self-deception as much as deception of others
abuses political (emotional) power (“the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion” (Peck, 1978/1992, p298[7]))
maintains a high level of respectability, and lies incessantly to do so
is consistent in his or her sins.
is unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim
has a covert intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury
Most evil people realize the evil deep within themselves, but are unable to tolerate the pain of introspection, or admit to themselves that they are evil. Thus, they constantly run away from their evil by putting themselves in a position of moral superiority and putting the focus of evil on others. Evil is an extreme form of what Peck, in THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED, calls a character and personality disorder.”
The group mind of Wikipedia also describes Peck’s understanding of love in his previous book, THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED:
“Love is not a feeling, it is an activity and an investment — ‘The will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth’ (Peck, 1978/1992, p85). Peck expands on the work of Thomas Aquinas over 700 years ago, that love is primarily actions towards nurturing the spiritual growth of another.”
I welcome any insights into the power of love and how it does — or doesn’t — impact our current political situation here in the USA (as well as how love and respect may impact other patterns unfolding here on planet earth).
It was written by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, a delicious songwriting team who helped to create the musicals RAGTIME, SEUSSICAL, ONCE ON THIS ISLAND and A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE (which is where “Love Who You Love” comes from) among many other projects.
As regular readers of my blog may remember, I have been away from home — and spending a minimum amount of time on my computer — during July and August.
But now it is September, and I am home and getting back into the swing of A) leading Music Together classes, B) doing gigs at retirement communities, and C) donating time + money to various political races + Get-Out-The-Vote undertakings.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I am writing this post in the middle of the night while drinking eight ounces of a somewhat vile-tasting liquid every fifteen minutes in preparation for a colonoscopy later this morning.
Yesterday I drank liquids (water, veggie broth and chicken broth) all day long — ending with the first round of vile-tasting-liquid drinking before bed.
The three days before that I ate the opposite of a healthy diet — including lots of refined white flour products (although I WAS allowed to potatoes and sweet potatoes as long as their skins were removed…)
It’s kind of funny that one is NOT supposed to ingest fiber before a colonoscopy when ingesting lots of dietary fiber is one of the best ways to promote colon health.
THANK YOU to everyone who has continued to visit my blog during the past two months.
It is very heartening to check my stats and find that 5-15 people have been dropping by on a daily basis even though I have shared no new content since the middle of June.
I first featured this song — written by Harold Arlen (music) and Yip Harburg (words) for Ethel Waters to sing in the MGM version of a musical called CABIN IN THE SKY — in a blog post on November 8, 2020. You can click here to skim it if you are curious.
The Biden-Harris ticket had recently won the presidential election, lots of people were dying due to COVID, and I was learning what it’s like to surrender to Western medicine as I began chemotherapy to treat a rare medical condition which first appeared to be multiple myeloma but was eventually diagnosed as PGNMID.
Almost four years later I am still very much alive and was even able to take a break from my two somewhat experimental drugs over the summer because they had worked so well during the preceding months.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I will end this blog post by quoting Simon Rosenberg, a political strategist who has been offering a sense of hope and possibility to many of us in recent months.
“When the dust settles, and the Russian-backed MAGA movement fades, America will come to understand how lucky we were that Joe Biden won the 2020 Presidential election.
His Day 1 as President was among the most challenging in our history — pre-vaccine COVID, economic collapse, (the former president’s) disastrous management of the pandemic, an insurrection, the first time America failed to have a peaceful transfer of power… just unbelievable levels of chaos as far as the eye could see.
And today, almost four years later, America’s economy is ‘the envy of the world.’
Growth here has been far above the growth in other advanced economies. We’ve had the best job market in 60 years. The lowest uninsured rate in history. Record levels of new business formation. Wage growth has outpaced inflation. The stock market is setting records.
Joe Biden has made historic investments in our economy and workers that will be creating jobs and opportunity for the American people for decades to come.
We’ve dramatically accelerated the energy transition necessary to keep the planet from warming.
We’ve beaten inflation – a global phenomenon – and interest rate cuts are coming now.
We are more energy independent today than we’ve been in decades.
Crimes rates which had gone up under Donald Trump have come down under Joe Biden.
The deficit which skyrocketed under Donald Trump has come down under Joe Biden.
Despite reckless Republican obstruction, flows to the border are lower today than they were under Donald Trump.
Joe Biden passed the first major gun safety legislation in 30 years, retired hundreds of billions of dollars of student debt, reinvigorated the Western alliance and has now landed a serious and long overdue blow against Russian influence operations here in the United States.”
And — behaving in the exact opposite manner from a dictator — he has chosen to pass the political baton to Vice President Harris, whose candidacy has catalyzed a new wave of enthusiasm and political engagement here in the USA.
Thank you, President Biden, for your decades of leadership, public service and compassion!
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his grounded, creative piano playing and sublime engineering/producing chops.
Thank you to all of the pollinators who work tirelessly to help our ecosystems function AND to all the folks who are working like busy bees to help elect the candidates of their choice.
And thank YOU for reading another one of my blog posts.
Summer has begun here in New England, and I would like to share an upbeat blog post — setting aside terrifying political and environmental challenges for a few moments — in order to savor some BEAUTY!
For example, these roses grow in a friend’s backyard.
They have a delicious, old-fashioned scent — and epitomize summer for me.
My friend also has a small vegetable garden AND a new dog — a Norfolk terrier — who likes to stand with his nose glued to one particular corner of her fenced-in backyard and sniff for rabbits.
Earlier this week she and I and another friend recorded six songs (five originals plus one cover) at Doug Hammer’s studio north of Boston.
Stryder overseeing rehearsal (photo by Molly Ruggles)
My friend’s new dog is extremely well behaved (he didn’t bark once during a two-hour rehearsal we had at their home), but we did not bring him with us to the studio.
Here is a photo of him making sure that we are all singing the correct parts of our vocal arrangements.
He is a very good boy!
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Chicken coop and sky (photo by Christianne McMillan)
The song in the player at the top of this blog post is an upbeat 1927 gem which pianist Doug Hammer and I recorded when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs by Ira and George Gershwin.
Longtime readers of this blog may remember that I wrote a blog post about it almost four years ago.
Longtime readers of this blog may also remember that I used to camp each summer for two weeks with family members in North Truro near the end of Cape Cod.
Rooster with catnip (photo by Christianne McMillan)
I created a lot of songs at that campsite; so it was extremely wrenching when we stopped going there due to the arrival of COVID in our lives.
This summer I am trying something new.
My sweetheart and I will be camping at my sisters’ family farm in the Finger Lakes region of upstate NY for almost two months.
One of my sisters is a gifted photographer who documents moments of beauty as she is moving from point A to point B to point C during the day.
It’s wonderful to get these glimpses into her life (she shares them on Facebook and Instagram) when I am living six hours (by car) away from her in Massachusetts.
Here is one of her Australorp roosters passing by some roses and catnip.
I am looking forward to spending time in my tent each day with a ukulele + a rhyming dictionary + my digital recorders + lots of binders full of song ideas + birds singing all around me.
Tasso contemplating a swim (photo by Christianne McMillan)
I am also looking forward to daily walks with my sisters and their rambunctious dog.
Tasso likes to swim in their irrigation pond, and I may end up swimming there, too, as long as I am not intimidated by the water snakes who (according to my sister) live there.
Sheep (photo by Christianne McMillan)
We shall see…
There is also a lovely state park with a great swimming area — featured in a recent TV commercial encouraging people to visit New York State — which I can walk to.
And there are probably water snakes there, too!
Here are a few more of my sister’s photos.
Her sheep are Icelandic and very smart.
They are also very opinionated about where they prefer to graze and do not hesitate to let her know if they would prefer a different location.
Roosters returning to barn (photo by Christianne McMillan)
Most of her chickens sleep in a coop overnight and roam around a penned-in area by day.
The coop and penned-in area get moved to different fields during the year.
But my sisters ended up with a lot of roosters when they hatched some eggs earlier this year.
So now a few of the roosters roam around the barn — where the horse lives with her own paddock area and where the sheep return each night to sleep.
One of my great grandfathers oversaw the creation of this barn ninety years ago. I do not remember the exact details, but I think it was constructed from two other pre-existing barns…
At one point it was full of horses plus a cow or two.
Tasso eating berries (photo by Christianne McMillan)
Now it is home to many swallows, a friendly Clydesdale-Morgan mare, and the sheep (who usually just sleep there overnight…)
I am very excited because I have been told the black cap raspberry harvesting season is about to begin..
They grow in the hedgerows and are delicious to pick and eat.
And put into pancakes.
Delicious bread (photo by Christianne McMillan)
And make into jam.
Some dogs even like to pick and eat them!
One of my summer goals is to learn how to do the morning and evening chores (taking care of the chickens and the sheep and the horse) because, if all goes well, my older sister will be riding the train to Virginia next month to welcome her first grandchild onto planet earth.
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
The circle of life!
My sisters believe in eating well.
Even though they have their own gardens, they also belong to a local farm share AND a local bakery share.
Black caps (photo by Christianne McMillan)
And my younger sister happens to be a wonderful chef who once worked in restaurants in New York and Massachusetts.
When I helped her and my nephew pack up and move east from California a few years ago, I learned that she has an extensive collection of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines (remember when we used to read newspapers and magazines?)
She is a fearless cook who will prepare anything which attracts her curiosity and interest.
She also is happy to make old favorites like Eggs Benedict.
Yum!!!
Eggs Benedict (photo by Christianne McMillan)
Another one of our great grandfathers was a professor of poultry science at Cornell University.
There’s even a building named after him — Rice Hall.
So eggs and chickens have a historical resonance for our extended family.
Thank you to my grandmother and grandfather who bought this farm almost 100 years ago.
Thank you to my grandmother and father and great aunt and great uncle and cousins and aunt — along with an ever-changing constellation of helping hands — for keeping it going after my grandfather died.
Thank you to my sisters for daring to move to the farm and raise their children.
Thank you to all of the birds and animals and insects and trees who also call the farm their home.
Thank you to my sisters’ wonderful neighbors who help in myriad ways — small and large — on a year-round basis.
Thank you to my older sister for letting me use her photos in this blog post.
Thank you to my younger sister for all of the delicious things she creates for all of us to eat!
Thank you to Pixabay for a lovely summery image of a notebook with roses which evokes a spirit of creativity…
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his exuberant piano playing and patient engineering/producing chops.
Thank you to Gretje Ferguson for taking the photo which Stephen Fischer incorporated into a fun graphic design for this song (and thank you to him as well for his creative handwork!)
Thank you to the long days and short nights of summer.
And thank you for reading another one of my blog posts.
I first heard this song performed twenty-plus years ago by my friend Erica Leopold.
It was written by a woman named Casey Scott, and I am guessing that Erica heard the song when it was recorded by a jazz singer named Holly Cole — although I read in Casey’s bio that she used to live in the Boston area in the 1980s…so maybe Erica heard Casey busking in Harvard Square!
I have found a lot of comfort over the years re-visiting Erica’s version of this song — which she recorded with pianist Doug Hammer and included on her debut CD.
Erica used to attend lots of music festivals and concerts in order to find great songs from all genres — folk, jazz, pop — that she could weave into her own musical performances.
Erica Leopold (source: Facebook)
I produced a couple of her performances when I oversaw events at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Harvard Square. I also performed with her several times in a winter holiday benefit series.
She was a generous collaborator, and she “cleaned up very nicely” when it came time to perform — wearing beautiful outfits with elegant hair and makeup.
Erica moved from the Boston area to western Massachusetts, and her singing activities slowed down as she focused on mothering a wonderful daughter who became very involved with horses.
Then (ARGH!!!!!) Erica discovered that she had brain cancer — which she fought with grace and humor for several years.
Erica with a friend (source: Facebook)
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I biked to visit her when she was getting care in an excellent rehab facility in the Boston area after a big operation. I brought my ukulele and a songbook, thinking that she might like to make some music together.
But after a few songs, I realized that she just wanted to be quiet, make eye contact and hold hands.
So we did that for a while.
“Cry if you want to, I won’t tell you not to, I won’t try to cheer you up… I’ll just be here if you want me.”
Erica hung in there for a long time, with a dedicated network of friends and family visiting her on a regular basis.
A few years ago I learned “Cry (If You Want to)” so that I could perform it with pianist Molly Ruggles during a UU church service in Medford, MA.
And then I recorded it with pianist Doug Hammer last year — in honor of one of my nephews, whose father had recently died.
“It’s no use in keeping a stiff upper lip, you can weep, you can sleep, you can loosen your grip. You can frown, you can drown and go down with the ship… you can cry if you want to.”
The graphic design for my recording of this song juxtaposes a photo taken by my sister Christianne of this nephew walking in a stream on their farm in upstate New York with a professional photo of me when I was about the same age as this nephew (who is covered up by my head to preserve his privacy…)
He will probably be grieving the loss of his dad — in obvious and not-so-obvious ways — for the rest of his life.
“You can stare at the ceiling and tear at your hair, swallow your feelings and stammer and swear…”
At the suggestion of her mother I included a lot of songs which our family used to listen to and sing when we were children and teenagers.
Some of them — such as “Stewball” by Peter, Paul & Mary, “I’m Gonna Be A Country Girl Again” by Buffy Sainte-Marie, and “Our House” by Crosby, Still, Nash & Young — moved me to tears.
My Niece and Her Husband (Photo by A Couple of Dudes Photography)
Music can be a very powerful connection to past events, past loved ones, past memories.
One more deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
I wish more of us would set aside time to listen to music and have a good cry.
I have a belief that much of the dysfunctional — and at times horrifically destructive — choices that my fellow human beings make on a daily basis are due to past injuries, past humiliations and past losses which have never been properly acknowledged and grieved.
Does anyone ever offer him an empathetic shoulder to cry on?
I am guessing, “no.”
I have long been fascinated by the way that tears come out of our eyes, which are located near the front part of our brains.
And I often wonder if crying might be part of how our brain processes/grieves/heals itself following an injury, insult or loss…
What do YOU think?
I hope that this song — which offers such a comprehensive, open-hearted, and non-judgmental invitation to cry — might touch the hearts of a few of my fellow human beings who may be feeling a bit shut down and overwhelmed by all that is happening these days here on planet earth.
Image by Myriams-Fotos from Pixabay
One more deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Thank you to Casey Scott for writing this song.
Thank you to the photographer who took the photo of me as a teenager — when I was still working a little bit professionally (doing voice-overs, commercials and subbing on the soap opera ANOTHER WORLD).
Thank you to my sister for taking the photo of my nephew in the glen and to Stephen Fischer for incorporating it into a graphic design for this song release.
Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sensitive piano playing and nuanced engineering/producing chops.
Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay for their beautiful images.
Image by Inke Raabe from Pixabay
And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.
Today’s musical selection is a two-song medley of gems written by Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers.
I recorded it many years ago with pianist Doug Hammer when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs with lyrics by Larry (Lorenz’s nickname) Hart.
Not only is Doug’s piano accompaniment extremely playful and inventive, Mr. Hart’s lyrics sit on Mr. Rodger’s music so comfortably and eloquently!
I won’t repeat what I shared in that post about Mr. Hart’s life — which was a very generous (and at times heart-breakingly sad) one.
Instead I will share a little bit about these two songs.
Busby Berkeley
“You Took Advantage Of Me” was first performed by a very tall guy nicknamed “Buzz” in the 1928 musical PRESENT ARMS.
Busby Berkeley (who had grown up in the world of theater) choreographed a bunch of musicals on Broadway — and then went on to choreograph and direct a bunch of movies in Hollywood.
Wikipedia tells us that on opening night Buzz forgot the lyrics to the second verse of “You Took Advantage of Me.”
Maybe he had been too focused on the choreography for the show?
Apparently he sang scat syllables during the second verse, and the audience thought it was funny, and Larry Hart eventually forgave him…
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Morton Downey
WIkipedia also tells us that it was a favorite song of the Prince Of Wales (Edward VIII), who once requested that Morton Downey — a very popular Irish-American tenor — perform it eleven times at a cafe in London.
The somewhat abusive message of the lyrics reminds me of another uptempo Rodgers & Hart uptempo song in which Larry writes “the furtive sigh, the blackened eye, the self-deception that believes the lie… I wish I were in love again.”
Nowadays — in this era of date rape drugs, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, and more than one former president of the United States— our songs are much less likely to playfully jest about someone taking advantage of someone else.
Another deep breath in.
And out.
Gene Kelly
The second song, “I Could Write A Book,” was created for the 1940 musical PAL JOEY.
It was introduced by another dancer, Gene Kelly, who went from performing on Broadway to become a huge success — as a dancer, actor, singer, choreographer and director — in Hollywood.
The rhyming is quintessential Larry Hart, and I love the literate theme of the song.
Larry was very well educated and could speak English and German (and I am guessing Yiddish, too, since his Jewish parents had emigrated from Germany…)
He met future collaborators and friends such as lyricist/librettist/producer Oscar Hammerstein, composer/producer Richard Rodgers, and librettist brother Herbert Fields (along with his younger sister, the lyricist/librettist Dorothy Fields) while he was studying at Columbia University.
Image by Lubos Houska from Pixabay
And Larry was also (on his mother’s side) the great-grandnephew of Heinrich Heine, whose poetry had been set to music by both Schumann and Schubert.
Perhaps this lineage helped inspire/embolden him to become a lyricist!
He was employed early in his career by the Schubert brothers as a translator of German plays into English.
He went on to co-create 26 Broadway musicals with Richard Rodgers as well as songs for many several Hollywood musicals — although they were much less happy working in the movie business, because they had much less power regarding how (or even if) their songs were used in a particular film.
Some of Larry’s other hit songs with Richard Rodgers include “My Funny Valentine,” “Blue Moon,” “The Lady Is A Tramp,” “Isn’t It Romantic,” “My Romance,” and “Where or When.”
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
Thank you for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts!
Thank you to the wonderful photographers at Pixabay (and the public domain images at Wikimedia).
And thank you to Doug Hammer for his terrific piano playing and patient engineering/producing chops.
You may have read in a previous blog post about how Spotify abruptly changed its payment procedures at the beginning of this year.
They are no longer paying royalties to the owners of any recording which earns fewer than 1000 streams per year.
Image by congerdesign from Pixabay
My recording with Doug of “You Took Advantage of Me/I Could Write A Book” has been streamed 569 times on Spotify since it was released at on October 6, 2023.
So I have five months to (I hope) drum up another 431 streams and reach their 1000-stream payment threshold…
May you continue to read and write and sing and dance — AND engage with our country’s political progress — for many years to come!
The songwriters Burt Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics) wrote a bunch of great songs together starting in the late 1950s through the early 1970s.
Today I am focusing on their beautiful anthem, “Alfie” (in the player at the top of this blog post).
As I have mentioned in past blog posts, I perform one-hour programs of music which feature a particular lyricist or composer at retirement communities, libraries, synagogues, coffee houses, and memory cafes around the greater Boston area with the help of two different pianists, Joe Reid and Molly Ruggles.
And due to the aging Baby Boomer demographic bulge, a LOT of new retirement communities have been built in Massachusetts in the past 10-20 years.
Most of them — hurrah! — still have real pianos in their community rooms (or auditoriums in the fancier places…)
And they book a significant amount of musical entertainment for their residents.
What’s lovely about doing more frequent musical visits is that we get to become better acquainted with the music-loving residents in their community.
And we have found (no surprise!) that music has an uncanny power to re-ignite memories — which, if we are lucky, the residents will share with us as we are packing up.
Some people’s memories are family-specific and often very poignant — a particular song was played at their parent’s wedding… or was the favorite song of a sister/brother/cousin… or is the song that always reminds them of a specific moment in high school.
One woman, the youngest child in a family of six, shared with us that her beloved older brother had recorded a version of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” as a present to bring home with him right before he was killed serving in WWII.
That song had become a sacred — and heart-breaking — hymn for her and her family.
She was moved to tears telling us about it almost eighty years after her brother’s death.
And we were honored to listen to her tell us about the significance of this song in her life.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
Cole Porter (courtesy of Wikimedia)
Joe Reid and I started ten years ago with a program of songs composed by Harold Arlen.
Then a resident at one of the places we performed that first show asked us to create a program of Cole Porter songs.
And then the Program Director at one retirement community lent us her favorite CD compilation of Hoagy Carmichael songs.
The work of one great lyricist/composer keeps leading us to another!
So far we’ve put together hour-long programs featuring the songs of Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, Hoagy Carmichael, the Gershwin Brothers, Jerome Kern, Dorothy Fields, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Irving Berlin, Yip Harburg, Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Jule Styne, and Harry Warren.
We’ve also created programs of songs written for great performers including Fred Astaire, Ethel Merman, Bing Crosby and Judy Garland.
Burt and Marlene in Israel (photo by Fritz Shlezingel — courtesy of Wikimedia)
And now we are venturing beyond music written during the 1920s-1950s — which is what has led us to the songs of Burt Bacharach.
Mr. Bacharach had a long and fascinating life.
His public profile as a pianist, arranger and composer rose significantly after Marlene Dietrich asked him to become her accompanist/band leader — which he did off and on for many years in countries around the world.
I have read Mr. Bacharach’s memoir, and he respectfully insists that his relationship with Ms. Dietrich was never sexual — although it appears that she would have liked it to be.
She championed his music, however, and sometimes would take care of him by cleaning his apartment and then preparing him a home-cooked meal.
According to Burt, she also helped him to juggle ongoing trysts and affairs with a wide variety of women while they were on the road together.
Another woman who played a significant role in Burt’s life was Angie Dickinson, who became his second wife and whose success and connections as a movie star are what led to Burt’s first film scoring opportunities.
Burt and Angie (courtesy of Wikimedia)
Some of Burt’s most beloved songs were created for the movies, including “The Look of Love” (for Casino Royale), “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head” (for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), and “Arthur’s Theme — The Best That You Can Do” (for Arthur).
In 1966 Burt and Hal David were asked to write something to play over the closing credits of a British film starring Michael Caine.
Hal and Burt read the script, and then Hal wrote a lyric inspired by something that Michael Caine’s character says at the very end of the film which Burt then set to music.
Cilla Black recorded “Alfie” for the British release of the movie, and version by Cher — of all people — was used when the film was released in the USA.
Bacharach and David’s muse Dionne Warwick also recorded her own version which became a big hit — and since then it has been recorded by thousands of people, including me and the pianist Doug Hammer.
Although we human beings continue to do horrific, greedy, short-sighted, ignorant and evil deeds on a daily basis here on planet earth, I remain a fan of love and kindness — as does the narrator in this song.
Thank you to the photographer who took this Michael Caine-esque photo of me in the late 1960s when I was working professionally as a child (doing commercials, modeling jobs, and voice-overs) in NYC.
Thank you to Stephen Fischer for incorporating it into a graphic design for this song release.
I hope you remain healthy as winter inches towards spring (at least in New England…)
I also fervently hope that you have not experienced any climate-related catastrophes in recent weeks — or war-related catastrophes — or ANY catastrophic circumstances at all.
Each and every day I remain grateful for healthy food to eat, a warm place to sleep, a functional bicycle, gainful (if very modestly-paying) employment, and clean water.
Deep breath in.
Deep breath out.
I also remain very grateful for all the folks who visit my blog — anywhere from four to eighteen each day during the past ten weeks — even though I have not published a new post since the end of December.
THANK YOU!
Right at the end of 2023 — having relied upon showers for the past few decades to keep myself clean — I re-discovered the delicious experience of taking a bath (after a long and chilly day of travel to visit relatives in upstate New York).
Wow.
Soaking in even a few inches of hot water is such a different experience from taking a shower.
One can slow down and lose track of time…
I also feel as though the heat from the bath water soaks deeper into my body and stays with me longer than the heat from water in a shower.
Or maybe I am imagining that…
And one final bonus is that I have a compelling reason to scrub my bath tub on a regular basis (which, when I was just taking showers, I could easily overlook for weeks on end…)
Hurrah!
Another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
My latest song release — an Ode To Water — celebrates all forms of water here on planet earth.
And its release coincides with another round of extreme rainfall and flooding here in the not-so-United States.
I continue to be flummoxed by how most of our political leaders — despite the increasingly destructive weather events occurring on a increasing basis all around our amazing planet — remain largely in denial about how closely we are inching towards some significant environmental tipping points — from which it will be very difficult if not impossible to recover.
Maybe it’s because they are human beings and — like most of us — tend to function in a state of denial until a catastrophe enters the inner circle of our lives.
To me, climate change/catastrophe underpins every other issue — huge imbalances of wealth/power, all sorts of civil rights challenges, the rising trend towards fascism in many countries including our own, women’s ability to make decisions about their own health/bodies, the industrial agri-chemical contamination of the web of life, etc. etc. etc. — which we are facing as human beings here on planet earth.
Here in Massachusetts our liberal Democratic governor is waffling about the proposed expansion of an airport used by private planes/jets called Hanscom Field, which is located eleven miles from where I live.
Making it easier for more rich people to fly in private jets is a perverse example of us NOT making the difficult changes in our human behavior/expectations that our climate change/catastrophe is calling for.
But I am guessing that Governor Healey is at least partially beholden/indebted to wealthy donors who have contributed to her successful political campaigns and may be inclined to help make their lives easier — even though it is well documented that air travel is one of the worst offenders regarding our fossil fuel over-consumption (and private jets are even worse than commercial flights!)
Yet another deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
Two states away from me in Maine, a friend has co-owned a tiny, one-room (former) fishing shack for decades with her extended family near Kennebunkport which serves as a very humble summer refuge for a large web of siblings, cousins and friends.
I have felt very fortunate to visit (and even perform) there a few times!
During a recent storm, this tiny cottage (which is boarded up during the winter months) experienced higher flooding than anyone can ever remember happening… and lost its front porch.
Another, larger shack (on tall stilts) which had been damaged last year and thoroughly repaired was entirely WASHED AWAY.
It had withstood nor’easters for over a hundred years… and now is gone!
The time to make difficult choices and change longstanding habits is NOW regarding how we human beings (especially those of us in developed countries) consume fossil fuels.
To top it all off, I recently read an article in The Guardian about how we human beings are very close to experiencing a major tipping point in how water circulates in the Atlantic ocean.
Yikes!
Due to my recent embrace of baths, I have a keen awareness about how water behaves in my tub.
Colder water sinks to the bottom, and warmer water stays near the surface.
In the Atlantic ocean there is something similar called the “Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) — a vast system of ocean currents” that helps to regulate our planet’s climate.
“AMOC, which encompasses part of the Gulf Stream and other powerful currents, is a marine conveyer belt that carries heat, carbon and nutrients from the tropics towards the Arctic Circle, where it cools and sinks into the deep ocean. This churning helps to distribute energy around the Earth and modulates the impact of human-caused global heating.”
And new analysis by scientists has determined that “AMOC is…on track towards an abrupt shift, which has not happened for more than 10,000 years and would have dire implications for large parts of the world.”
Another huge YIKES!!!
Followed by one final deep breath in.
And deep breath out.
This is why I ride my bike and/or walk and/or take public transportation.
This is why I eat less meat.
This is why I choose not to fly in order to visit friends and/or family in faraway places.\
And this is why I remain deeply grateful for all of the miraculous basics in my current life — including clean, fresh water to drink and to cook with and to clean with and to bathe in plus a non-leaky roof over my head.
Here is a link to my “Ode To Water“ in case you might like to stream (music flows in bits of electronic data these days these days…) it.
And as I have explained before, if you “like” one of my songs or add it to one of your playlists, that will improve the algorithmic sharing of my music.
Furthermore, if you listen to it via Spotify, I would be particularly grateful because Spotify recently changed its business model.
Starting in 2024, they are no longer paying indie artists half of the royalties (which are already absurdly low) due to them for any song streamed fewer than 1000 times per year.
So I need to get another 337 streams in the next ten months (so far it has earned 663 streams from 476 listeners around the world in the two months since it was released!)
I will probably write about this discouraging “rob from the poor to pay the rich” business strategy in a future blog post…
But, returning to several of the “glass-more-than-half-full” blessings in my life, I would like to thank Doug Hammer for playing so expressively on this recording and for being such a terrific engineer/producer.
Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his elegant graphic design work.
Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay for their beautiful images.
Thank you to the amazing cycles of water which circulate — from oceans to clouds to earth to plants to us and back around again and again and again — on a daily basis here on planet earth.
And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts!
ps: If you are thirsty for more musings about water, you can click here and here to read blog posts from 2022 and 2020 which featured earlier versions of my “Ode To Water.”
amusicalifeonplanetearth 