July 17, 2026 by willedare

My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)

I hope you are well as you read this blog post!

Today I have been inspired by the aphorism “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

You may have seen it on posters, coffee mugs, etc. — attributed to Albert Einstein.

But according to an online search, there is little evidence that Einstein ever said it.

Instead I learned that a writer — Rita Mae Brown — created this quotation and attributed it to a fictional character in her 1983 book Sudden Death.

Thank you, Ms. Brown!

I think about this aphorism when I am reminded that one is supposed to budget an equal amount of money to market/promote/advertise one’s product as one has spent creating it in the first place.

Yikes!

I have never done this.

Other than maintaining my website, pitching a few songs to music bloggers, and writing this blog, I have spent very little money to promote my music.

However, this particular piece of marketing advice comes up fairly often when I am reading books/articles and watching videos about how to navigate the business of making music in the 21st century.

Now I must pause for a moment for a digression…

Over the past thirty years, I have observed that the music business — like life itself — is always changing and evolving.

So it is virtually impossible to do the same thing over and over again for more than a year or two.

And as a result of personal computers entering our daily lives, we have to keep endlessly learning the latest versions of many different programs/applications — as well as updating our hardware and software.

So as much as I would love to be able to do the same thing over and over again — while drafting new songs using Apple’s GarageBand or making videos using Apple’s iMovie, for example — I am forced to learn the latest updates (and alleged improvements) in order to continue making music.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

This has always seemed to me to be a huge waste of time AND money in order to make a few tech company owners, tech company employees and tech company stockholders rich.

I keep hoping to find a research study which would document the billions of hours which we human beings have wasted in the process of learning — and re-learning…and learning yet again — how to use various computer programs.

I would also like to find studies which explore the cumulative toll on our mental health due to the Sisyphean frustration of having to update and re-learn so many basic tasks/skills on an ongoing basis.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

So I am happy to report that my friends Molly Ruggles, Ellen Epstein, Michael Cicone and I went in a pre-industrial — and some might even say late-Paleolithic — direction with our most recent song release which we recorded a cappella.

You may remember an earlier version of “My Sweet Honeydew” (recorded with pianist Doug Hammer) which I featured in a blog post from January 8, 2022.

You are welcome to click here and visit — or re-visit — that blog post if you are so inclined.

A couple of years ago singer/songwriter/pianist Molly Ruggles took my original version, added an entirely new section of music + lyrics, and then arranged it for four voices to perform a cappella.

Our new version is in the player at the beginning of this blog post.

You may recognize Molly as a vital part of my trio recordings with Carole Bundy.

Molly, Ellen, Will & Michael (Photo by Doug Hammer)

I have known the other two singers on this recording — Ellen and Michael — for decades.

If you are a fan of contemporary folk music, you may be familiar with them as part of a musical trio with singer/songwriter/guitarist Cindy Kallet for forty-five years.

Ellen and Michael have released three beloved CDs of music with Cindy as well as appearing on many of her solo recording projects.

So I feel very honored and excited that they agreed to be part of this recording!

Now I will circle back to the aphorism that “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Molly and I are doing something new with this recording.

We have hired a fellow singer-songwriter, Erik Balkey, to help us promote it to folk radio programs/stations around the USA.

Erik puts together compilation CDs of new recordings every two months and sends them to a couple hundred folk DJs and program directors.

We were surprised — and pleased — to learn that he chose “My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)” to lead off the second CD in his July/August promotional compilation.

If you happen to listen to a folk program in your neighborhood — or maybe far away from your neighborhood via an internet radio station — please let me know.

Then I will check and see if Erik sent his July/August promotional CDs — including “My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)” — to your favorite station/program.

It will be interesting to see what does — or doesn’t — unfold regarding airplay for our song this summer…

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Thank you to Erik Balkey for his radio outreach.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his collaborative production skills (and spontaneous photographic impulses).

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his graphic design gifts.

Thank you to Molly Ruggles for creating this new version of my song.

Thank you to Molly and Michael and Ellen for learning, performing and then recording it.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to yet another blog post from/by me.

One final deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

P.S. You are welcome to stream “My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)“ on your favorite digital music platform by clicking here.

February 17, 2026 by willedare

Falling In Love With Love…

Greetings from East Arlington, MA — just outside of Boston in the USA!

Today I am featuring a beautiful song with lyrics by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers.

As this TIME Magazine cover attests, they were a very potent musical and cultural force in the early-middle 20th century.

And I am very happy that a recent movie — BLUE MOON (made by the wonderful director Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke as Larry Hart) — has renewed interest in Hart’s life and musical legacy.

Here’s a link to a great article in The Hollywood Reporter about making the film if you are curious.

It turns out that BLUE MOON was a decade-long labor of love which was filmed on a beautifully re-created version of Sardi’s — a famous bar/restaurant in Manhattan’s theatre district.

Reading the article brought tears to my eyes.

You can also click here to read a blog post I wrote about Larry Hart exactly ten years ago if you are even more curious.

And I once wrote a blog post about two of his and Rodgers’ hit songs — “You Took Advantage Of Me” and “I Could Write A Book” — which you can read by clicking here.

Not mentioned in the BLUE MOON movie is how devoted Hart was to his mother — with whom he lived his entire life.

Hart’s mother died around the same time that OKLAHOMA (the first musical his decades-long collaborator Rodgers created with another lyricist — their mutual friend Oscar Hammerstein II) opened on Broadway.

So he was grieving this huge familial loss simultaneously with the at-least-partial loss of his friendship AND professional relationship with Rodgers.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

And I had forgotten (until I re-read my blog post from ten years ago) that Mr. Hart had also begun a collaboration about underground freedom fighters in France with a composer who had recently escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe.

So, as an American-born Jew whose parents had emigrated to NYC in the late 19th century from Germany, he also may have also been feeling a significant amount of grief, rage, despair, terror, and “there but for the grace of G-d” empathy for the millions of Jews still remaining in Europe.

And let’s not forget that American Nazis were holding huge rallies at places like Madison Square Garden during this time as well!

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I don’t know how much it was public knowledge that LGBTQ folks were being sent to Nazi death camps, but I am guessing that theater people — such as composer Kurt Weill, who had managed to escape from Berlin to Paris to Manhattan — had plenty of heart-breaking anecdotes to share about the fates of their previous artistic partners who happened to be LGBTQ and/or Jewish and/or Roma.

All of this was also not mentioned in BLUE MOON. although Mr. Hawke and Mr. Linklater and some of the other actors such as Andrew Scott apparently did a lot of research before they began filming the movie — so I am guessing that they had most/all of this information influencing the subtexts of their acting performances.

And another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

There are certainly some powerful parallels with what was happening leading up to Larry’s death in 1943 and what is currently unfolding here in the USA.

One thing I wrote about in my blog post from ten years ago — and which BLUE MOON does explore — is the paradox of Larry Hart (a somewhat closeted gay man) falling in love with and proposing to women.

And the song “Falling In Love With Love” may illuminate some of Hart’s thoughts and feeling on this topic/phenomenon/tendency.

What do YOU think?

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his exquisite piano playing and comprehensive production skills.

Thank you to John Childress (and his collaborator at the time named Laurel, I think…) for taking this photo many years ago when I still had plenty of hair.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his lovely graphic design work.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

You can click here to stream “Falling In Love With Love” on Pandora, YouTube, Apple Music, etc. if the spirit moves you.

And you are also always welcome to vis it my website: WillSings.com.

There’s all sorts of info and music there — and you could join my email list of you are so inclined.

December 27, 2025 by willedare

Puttin’ On The Ritz

If we scratch the surface of almost any cultural artifact — in this case a song written in the late 1920s by Irving Berlin — it is very likely that we will discover layers of herstory/history which have been buried, misplaced, overlooked or otherwise airbrushed out of the picture.

Wikipedia informs me that Irving Berlin wrote his original version of this song in May 1927, and it was first included in a 1930 movie — when “talkies” were an exciting new technology.

“The title derives from an (African-American) slang expression ‘to put on the Ritz’ — meaning to dress very fashionably — (which) was inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel in London.”

And Mr. Berlin’s first set of lyrics do indeed describe very well-dressed African-Americans strolling on Lenox Avenue in Harlem…

However, when Fred Astaire performed “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in the 1946 movie BLUE SKIES, Mr. Berlin re-wrote the lyrics to become the version which I recorded with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano.

“Lenox Avenue” became “Fifth Avenue,” and “Spangled gowns upon the bevy/Of high browns from down the levy — all misfits” become “Different types who wear a day coat/Pants with stripes and cutaway coat — perfect fits.”

This appears to be yet another example of how African-American culture inspires — and then gets appropriated and re-purposed to earn money for non-African-Americans.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

And here I go, continuing this sad cultural practice, by recording my own version with Doug!

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

We did this when I was creating an hour-long program of songs written for — or made famous by — Fred Astaire.

This version is the second or third take Doug and I recorded — and it’s a great example of how spontaneous and playful our creative process can be when we are both “in the zone” together.

Although there are a few more winter holiday favorites written by Jewish songwriters which I would like to record with Doug, we never got around to doing that in 2025… so I have released “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in December as a nod to upcoming New Year’s Eve festivities…

If you’d like to stream it via Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, etc, you can click here.

Thank you to Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons for these photos.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his piano-playing and his producing/engineering skills.

Thank you to Stephen Charles Fischer for his graphic design work.

Thank you to Irving Berlin for writing — and re-writing — this song.

Thank you to the African-American residents of Harlem who inspired Mr. Berlin to write this song in the first place.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to this blog post!

September 19, 2025 by willedare

May The Bees Keep Buzzing

One of my favorite bloggers is Dan Kennedy, who has worked at many different media organizations in the Boston area and is now a professor at Northeastern University.

He writes about what is happening in — and to — the media here in the USA.

I first became aware of our Boston media landscape when I worked as PR Director at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Harvard Square.

My boss Diane Wortis and I created (and then produced annually for five years) a day-long conference called “Arts & The Media” which allowed us to call everyone who had anything to do with arts coverage in the Greater Boston area and invite them to participate on a panel.

This included folks from our big papers (including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The Boston Phoenix) — to folks at radio and TV stations, to folks who worked for smaller local papers and magazines.

Our conferences started happening as Mitt Romney’s private investment company Bain Capital was buying up a bunch of local daily and weekly newspapers in the greater Boston area and consolidating them into one company — which meant that the staff at all of these formerly independent papers was being slashed and lots of generic (non-town-specific) content was starting to be written which could be printed in many different papers within this new chain.

I bore witness firsthand to the degradation of media coverage as a result of large-scale, corporate consolidation.

And twenty five years later, that trend of media consolidation has only worsened.

All of this is to explain why I write near the end of this song — “May our press remain vital, always truth pursuing…”

Reading our local papers and nurturing relationships (via hundreds of hand-written thank you cards) with local arts writers and arts editors for over a decade helped me to understand how crucial the Fourth Estate is to a functioning democracy with healthy checks and balances.

Dan writes in his blog about what is going poorly (media consolidation continues, ad revenues drop…) and also where there are glimmers of hope via new models of local journalism.

And sometimes he weighs in on journalistic best practices.

He steered me to a speech Marty Baron gave at Brandeis University a few years ago which touched upon the fascinating topic of objectivity.

Mr. Baron used to be the editor of The Boston Globe and then became the editor of The Washington Post.

Here’s the heart of what Marty had to say:

“Objectivity is not neutrality.

It is not on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand journalism.

It is not false balance or both-sidesism.

It is not giving equal weight to opposing arguments when the evidence points overwhelmingly in one direction.

It does not suggest that we as journalists should engage in meticulous, thorough research only to surrender to cowardice by failing to report the facts we’ve worked so hard to discover…

The idea is to be open-minded when we begin our research and to do that work as conscientiously as possible.

It demands a willingness to listen, an eagerness to learn — and an awareness that there is much for us to know.

We don’t start with the answers.

We go seeking them, first with the already formidable challenge of asking the right questions and finally with the arduous task of verification.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

May our media in the USA stop kowtowing and collapsing… and realize that they are just as vulnerable as the rest of us to arrests in the middle of the night, arrests while we are walking from campus to our apartment, arrests while we are in a courthouse following all the rules about how to become a US citizen, arrests while we are picking vegetables, arrests while we are doing our laundry in the middle of the night.

Anothert deep breath in.

And another deep breath out.

You can click here for a link to “May The Bees Keep Buzzing” on Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, etc.

If you might be kind enough to stream it —and maybe even “like” it and add it to one of your playlists if you are so moved — that would be very helpful to feed positive data into the various algorithms which decide whose music gets played and how often…

I have selected flower photos from the wonderful photographers at Pixabay which I hope will help to offset the serious tone of this blog post.

Thank you to them and their skill and their generosity.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sublime collaborative skills — both playing his Schimmel grand piano AND using his Apple computer like a 21st century wizard.

And thank YOU for listening to and reading yet another one of my blog posts!

February 9, 2025 by willedare

When Your Heart Is Full Of Love…

Valentine’s Day is on the horizon.

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.

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.”

That coincidence/synchronicity sealed the deal.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Barley (I think?) photo by Frauke Riether from Pixabay

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.

And you can click here to stream “Thumbelina” if the spirit moves you.

And as always, I welcome any comments below!

April 27, 2024 by willedare

I Believe In Love, Alfie…

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.

Some places we visit just once per year.

Other places book us 4-7 times per year.

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.

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.

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.

Just over ten years ago I wrote a blog post which featured our recording of this song. You can click here to read (or re-read) it if you are curious.

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.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his beautiful piano playing and excellent engineering/producing chops.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay and Wikimedia for their beautiful images.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

If you like this song well enough to listen to it again, you are welcome to stream it by clicking here.

And you are always welcome to visit my non-blog, musical website by clicking here.

March 17, 2024 by willedare

More Ode To Water

Greetings after a months-long pause in blogging!

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.”

But AMOC “is being eroded by the faster-than-expected melt-off of Greenland’s glaciers and Arctic ice sheets, which pours (very cold) freshwater into the sea and obstructs the sinking of saltier, warmer water from the south.”

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.”

December 26, 2023 by willedare

After The Holidays

Greetings during this time of short days and long nights in the northern hemisphere.

I hope you are warm and well as you read this blog post.

Right now in Massachusetts we are graced with a beautiful full moon shining down on our snow-less streets.

I first shared the song “After The Holidays” (in the player at the top of this page) three years ago in a blog post about the challenges of feeling lonely during the holiday season.

As you may remember — or perhaps you have blocked it out of your memory in order to be able to move on with your life — three years ago things were not going well in the USA.

Many hospitals were overwhelmed by COVID — with dead bodies being stored in refrigerated trailer trucks until funeral homes and crematoria could catch up with the demand for their services.

It was a very challenging winter holiday season.

And 2023 has brought new challenges — and tragedies — into our lives here on planet earth.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Wars continue to grind along, destroying human lives along with the lives of countless other beings caught in the cross fire. Pollution continues to seep into every ecosystem here on planet earth. Climate change continues to increase with catastrophic consequences.

My heart goes out to anyone who is feeling hopeless, who is feeling distraught, who is feeling alone, or who is feeling unloved during this holiday season.

And although I am fortunate to have a life partner + family + friends with whom I can gather during the holidays, I can vividly remember how heart-broken and grief-stricken I felt when the first big love of my life chose to end our relationship many decades ago…

“After The Holidays” taps into those feelings of raw desperation.

It was written by John Meyer.

His friend Judy Garland performed it on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in 1968.

Mr. Meyer is still alive and living in New York City.

Earlier this month I tracked down an email address for him so that I could let him know I had released a version of his song.

And much to my (happy) surprise, he was kind enough to give it a listen.

Here is how he responded:

“Will, I’m impressed.

You’re note-perfect — good for you!

Others bend the melody to suit their often tasteless predilections.

And I like that you take your time with the song, investing it with real poignancy.

Thank you for sharing.

Merry Christmas!”

Needless to say, I am delighted (and relieved) that he responded so positively to how pianist Doug Hammer and I interpreted his song.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

And I will gently point out that this is yet another winter holiday song written (or co-written) by Jewish composers/lyricists — joining a beloved list of favorites including “Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Silver Bells,” “Winter Wonderland,” “Let It Snow,” and “I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day.”

Here is a link to my version “After The Holidays“ in case you might like to stream 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.

Thank you to the John Meyer for writing such a moving song.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so sensitively on my version of John’s song AND for being such a diligent engineer/producer.

Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his terrific graphic design work.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay — and to Scott Wynn — for their great images.

And thank YOU for reading. and listening to another one of my blog posts!

May your 2024 be full of peace and hope and determination…

November 15, 2023 by willedare

Microflora Can Amaze!

Seven years ago I wrote about the amazing world living in our intestinal tracts.

You can click here to read that blog post if you are curious.

Since then — I am happy to note — more and more research has been done on the extraordinary community of beings who live in our guts AND the fascinating ways that they contribute to our mental and physical health.

All of this research underscores how profoundly our human lives are woven together with the lives of other beings here on planet earth — bacteria, viruses, plants (who provide us with oxygen to breathe, food to eat, and a bunch of medicinal options), fungi, and our fellow animals.

As you probably are well aware, medical science is discovering that it is indeed healthy to eat

A) High-fiber foods — such as whole grains, garlic, onions, leeks, and beans which are considered to be PREBIOTIC-rich foods,

B) Yogurt and kefir (without lots of added sugar) which are considered to be PROBIOTIC-rich sources of beneficial bacteria which can help to diversify and/or replenish our gut biome, and

C) Fermented foods — such as kimchi, kombucha, miso and sauerkraut — which also have lots of live, active, beneficial bacterial cultures.

There are TRILLIONS of bacteria in our guts, and the proportions of more-beneficial bacteria to less-beneficial bacteria are influenced by what we choose to eat.

Eating lots of prebiotic and probiotic foods encourages more of the healthier bacteria to thrive.

And eating lots of refined sugar apparently causes more of the not-so-healthy bacteria to thrive.

Not surprisingly, getting regular exercise and sleeping well also contribute to our gut health.

An internet search for “gut health” yields lots of inspiring explanations and recommendations.

You can click here for a link to one I liked from Healthline.

As I say in my song, “the world within is calling for attention.”

What sort of attention do YOU give to your gut microbiome?

Even though I have not shared a new post for two months, my stats tell me that lots of people continue to visit my blog (maybe because I have over 100 past blog posts to choose from…?)

Whatever the reason, THANK YOU to everyone who keeps finding and reading my blog!

And another thank you to everyone who has been streaming my songs on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube and other platforms.

Any song you “like” or “heart” or add to a playlist improves the algorithmic activity of my music there.

You are welcome to click here and listen to “The World Within” on many streaming platforms if the spirit moves you.

You are also welcome to visit my website — where you can learn more about my musical life (including upcoming gigs) if you are curious.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his playful piano playing AND his collaborative engineering expertise.

Thank you to the generous photographers and graphic designers at Pixabay.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for all of his graphic design work on behalf of my musical life here on planet earth.

Thank you to the trillions of bacteria with which each of us co-exists on a daily basis.

And most of all, thank YOU for reading — and listening to — another one of my blog posts!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

September 2, 2023 by willedare

Nice Work If You Can Get It (pt.2)

Here in the USA, it’s Labor Day weekend.

I just looked up the history of Labor Day, and discovered — no surprise — that it has roots in labor unions.

You can click here to learn more if you are curious — and to see a great photo of an early Labor Day float being pulled by two horses during a celebration in 1916..

I have read that union activity is on an upswing in the USA.

With a current CEO-to-worker compensation ratio estimated to be 400 — meaning that chief executive officers are likely to earn 400 times the annual average salary of production and nonsupervisory workers in their industry — the time seems ripe to re-balance this extraordinarily greedy state of affairs.

I am an inactive member of two unions — SAG/AFTRA (for film and TV) and Equity (for stage) — as a result of working professionally as a child and teenager.

Go unions!

They are a vital part of our human socety’s interconnected systems of checks and balances.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I originally featured this recording with pianist Doug Hammer of a great Gershwin Brothers song a couple of years ago as part of a very long blog post in which I shared the pros and cons of a chatbot-assisted music marketing strategy as well as some show business history.

Today’s post will be shorter and sweeter.

THANK YOU to everyone who has been streaming my songs in recent months!

“Gold In Them Hills” — which I released a month ago — has just surpassed 1000 streams on Spotify. This translates into approximately $4 worth of income — which is split, I think, between the person who owns the rights to the song (Ron Sexsmith and/or his music publishing company) and the person who owns the rights to this particular recording of his song (which is me).

“Nice Work If You Can Get It” — which I released near the end of June — has been streamed 685 times on Spotify.

So that will earn me another dollar.

Luckily I am in this for the long haul…and I earn enough money from performing at retirement communities and leading Music Together classes to cover my very minimal expenses.

I also feel very fortunate to be making and sharing music as a way to make a (very modest) living.

Music really is “nice work if you can get it.”

A musician named Bree Noble — who also does a lot of teaching and coaching of other musicians — recently sent out an email which I found inspiring.

She wrote:

“Did you know that releasing music — i.e. seeing a beloved project through to completion — can improve your mental health?”

According to her, “studies show that most people desire purpose and connection in their work, and without that, their mental health can suffer.”

“We thrive when we experience ‘birthing’ an idea and seeing it through (to completion) — taking on a project that is our ‘baby’ and nurturing it to ‘adulthood.'”

Releasing music “can give (us) the emotional and spiritual benefits of project ownership — taking on a new challenge, providing a goal to work toward, and giving (us) a …fulfilling event to look forward to.”

Best of all, “not only can the…process (of releasing music) invigorate (our) emotional and spiritual (lives), it can help (our) music reach new people who need to hear it, enriching their lives as well.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I think this wisdom/insight can apply to any creative undertaking — even writing a blog post.

It also reminds me of an article I read recently about folks who live to be over 100 years old.

Researchers have been studying these people’s lives, and many common themes have emerged.

They tend to be optimistic — while also acknowledging the reality of their challenges.

They tend to feel connected with others — as part of an extended family, a circle of friends, a spiritual community, a bowling league, a quilting circle, a fraternal lodge, a blogging community or some other subset of beings here in the interconnected web of life on planet earth.

Their diets tend to be plant-based — eating more vegetables, fruits, beans/legumes, and whole grains AND and more “cooked-from-scratch” meals (meaning less processed/junk food items…)

They tend to get out into nature on a regular basis — walking, biking, swimming, doing tai chi, painting, reading, playing games, etc. — rather than sitting at home and watching TV.

And they tend to have a sense of purpose — whether volunteering their time, sharing their wisdom, contributing to group causes, creating things, etc.

Apparently if we feel that we need to be here on planet earth — contributing in some positive way to our families, friends, children, grandchildren, community, watershed, ecosystem, political system, etc. — we are less likely to die.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I am curious to learn in the comments about what gives YOU a sense of purpose these days.

Here is a link to “Nice Work If You Can Get It” in case you might like to listen to it on a streaming service.

As I have shared in past blog posts, if you “like” it or “heart” it or add it to a playlist, that improves the algorithmic sharing of my music on that particular streaming service.

Thank you to the Gershwin brothers — Ira (words) and George (music) — for writing such great songs.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so exuberantly on my version of their song AND for being such. a terrific engineer/producer.

Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his skillful graphic design work.

Thank you to labor unions for helping to counter-balance the greed which seems to be an unavoidable part of our capitalistic system of economics.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay for their great images.

Thank you to whoever took my photo 50+ years ago on a front staircase somewhere in NYC.

And thank YOU for reading. and listening to another one of my blog posts!

amusicalifeonplanetearth

Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire

Stephen Fischer

My Sweet Honeydew (A Cappella)

Falling In Love With Love…

Puttin’ On The Ritz

May The Bees Keep Buzzing

When Your Heart Is Full Of Love…

I Believe In Love, Alfie…

More Ode To Water

After The Holidays

Microflora Can Amaze!

Nice Work If You Can Get It (pt.2)