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Chris DeBlasio: Walt Whitman in 1989
Upcoming Birthday Boy Walt Whitman simply looms too large to appear only one day this week. But for our final post, we’ve selected not a Whitman text, but a Whitman tribute. “Walt Whitman in 1989”, a breathtaking poem by Perry Brass, imagines Whitman, who had visited and volunteered in hospitals during the Civil War, doing the same at the height of AIDS Crisis.
Paula Kimper: I believe in you my soul
Are you ready for Walt Whitman’s birthday next weekend? We hope you got him something nice, because he’s turning 200 — kind of a big one. Dear Walt is such a big part of our American cultural fabric, especially in NYC, and we’re so happy to see so many artists and organizations celebrating his year.
Laura Kaminsky & Leah Maddrie: Right to Life
Every five years or so, we at 5BMF like to go all out and commission twenty composers to write a new song each about this wild, wonderful, gritty, overwhelming city we call our home. For our Five Borough Songbook, Vol. II we were delighted to have the amazing Laura Kaminsky on the roster
John Wallowitch: Bruce
This week's Song of the Day is hosted by Jesse Blumberg and Donna Breitzer,...
Tchaikovsky: Amid the din of the ball
“Amid the din of the ball” was one of the first songs I learned after my first lessons in Russian diction at CCM with Ken Griffiths. I was drawn to its dreamlike waltz feel, its incredibly vivid images from strophe to strophe, and the way Tchaikovsky spins his gorgeous melodic gifts from a noisy ballroom into a solitary bedroom.
Pharrell Williams: Happy
This ecstatic song needs no introduction. The text for “Happy” is itself an...
Leonard Cohen: Take this Waltz
“This poet ruined my life,” Leonard Cohen said of the Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Cohen, a singer/songwriter and poet, himself, took great liberty with the original text of the haunting poem it is based on,”Pequeño vals vienés” (Little Viennese Waltz).
Laura Nyro: Save the Country
The Pollyanna in me reaches for something hopeful today. The political climate we are living in certainly calls for more protest songs like this one. And if ever we needed a positive rallying cry, it is now.
Mavis Staples & The Staple Singers: I’ll Take You There
When commissioned to compose a sequence of poems to be set to music to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising the song “I’ll Take You There,” from the same era, was among the first that came to mind. A kind of anthem first performed and recorded in 1972 by The Staple Singers, “I’ll Take You There” was a protest song that reflected a kind of optimism, an instant and uplifting hit.
Antônio Carlos Jobim and Elis Regina: Águas de Março (1974)
As a word-worker, it takes an extra bit of effort to let go of what was literally being said, to give myself over to the sway of a song performed in a language I don’t speak or clearly understand. But some songs take no effort at all, and need no translation.
Beyoncé: Run the World
The title of “Fierce Grace” is no joke– it’s fierce on every level, from Jeannette Rankin herself to the all-female creative team of the cycle (Kitty Brazelton, Laura Kaminsky, Laura Karpman, Kimberly Reed and Ellen Reid) to the mindset Heather Johnson and I have to embody in order to perform this non-stop forty-minute work.
Nancy Sinatra: These Boots Are Made for Walking
Given that the third song of the cycle is titled “10,000 Go-Go Boots” (text by Kimberly Reed, music by Laura Kaminsky), how could I NOT include this iconic song recorded by Nancy Sinatra?
Joan Jett: Bad Reputation
Rankin didn’t care whether she fit into the public’s expectation of her, or into “the boys club” of Congress– she was going to vote for what she believed in. She voted against World War I, and was the lone voice of dissent against the declaration of war on Japan in 1941.
Marian Anderson sings “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”
With so many possibilities, I decided to use the themes of Fierce Grace:...
Ethel Smyth: The March of the Women
With so many possibilities, I decided to use the themes of Fierce Grace: Jeannette Rankin as the themes of my “Song of the Day.” Women’s rights. Civil rights. Women’s suffrage. Pacifism. And a whole lot of Fierce Grace.