It was an evening in late September in 1996 when I got the call that a friend had passed away. I knew she had tremendous health issues, and she was supposed to be recovering from recent transplant surgery, but the news still came as a shock.
After I hung up, I left my upper Loomis Street apartment and walked two blocks up the hill to the playground at Mater Christi school, which at that time had a gigantic play fort on which many college-age folks liked to hang out in the wee hours. I shuffled about the empty playground, sobbing, overcome by the injustice of losing such a vivacious friend, an architect with a deep love of art and a now-widowed husband. Squinting at the night sky, I felt this burning in my chest to pick a fight with God.
“Moon Over Mater Christi” is one of those songs that took a long time to write. As happens frequently with me, the refrain came easily, but the verses needed a lot of work.
I made the task harder on myself by choosing to omit any references to death. It’s not that I have a thing against the word. Honestly, it’s just a complete conceit of mine. If you want to write an elegy, the easy and natural thing to do is to mention death and dying in the lyrics; it’s another matter to do it but avoid those words and their common euphemisms. At any rate, it was something I wanted to try, and I hope the emotion isn’t hindered as a result. (I also proposed to my then-girlfriend, Kit, via a song that doesn’t have references to love or marriage. That’s a post for another day.)
I dedicated the performance to Josh Glass, a phenomenal Burlington musician who had just lost his brother the day before. Once more, here’s hoping he and his family can heal.
Moon Over Mater Christi
There’s a moon
Over the schoolyard tonight
Over the stone Virgin’s sight
Free from terrestrial ties
Moon over Mater Christi must rise
Summer afternoon
And how you sparkled at your party
I was transfixed by such magnificence
Every rendered room
–Closer to masterpiece than fashion–
Had you on the advent of
Amazing truth
And there’s a moon
Over the schoolyard tonight
Over the stone Virgin’s sight
Free from terrestrial ties
Moon over Mater Christi must rise
Like a silken suit
That’s how he fit: The man you married
The mirror’s image to your radiance
And if I needed proof
Perfection and beauty truly happen,
Seeing you both laughing was
The best I knew
And there’s a moon
Over the schoolyard tonight
Over the stone Virgin’s sight
Free from terrestrial ties
Moon over Mater Christi must rise
When I heard the news,
Blinded by rage, I stumbled nightward,
As if a child had met with the bully’s boot
It’s a bully who
Tore out the flower from the garden
Unlike an artist, His work is never through
And you,
Cut like an April bloom
Lessons were lost in this school
But even a swing set can cry
Moon over Mater Christi must rise
“Moon Over Mater Christi” was recorded on Friday, July 6, at the Rose Street Artists’ Cooperative and Gallery Coffeehouse. That white noise threatening to drown out the song is the fans set up to deal with the heat of an early July evening.
I would like to honor today, Kit O’Connor’s and my 13th wedding anniversary, by letting you know that none of this music would ever see the light of day if it weren’t for Kit’s vast reservoirs of patience and support. Everybody should be so lucky as to have someone like Kit by their side.
It’s been over half a year now that I came out with “Let’s Go Miro”, my song promoting Miro Weinberger’s candidacy for Mayor of Burlington, Vermont (USA):
I did it partly as a challenge to myself. I had recently come out with a goofy hip-hop video promoting an adult onesie as the consummate clubbing couture, and, having also recently supported candidate Miro Weinberger during an unusually tumultuous Democratic caucus that included a run-off vote a month after the initial vote, I felt that I was in a good position to do something that I assumed few other Burlingtonians were planning to: cough up a catchy song for my guy.
The easy part was the chorus. It was one of those classic, “comes to you while you’re in the shower” ideas, and the refrain just presented itself to me shortly after the winning caucus. After hurriedly drying off and getting dressed, I raced out into our truck, took out my phone, and recorded the following (which, since I never posted it before this week, you’re hearing it here for the first time ever):
In a sense, much of the hard work was done at this point. This is propaganda, a pop song that’s supposed to rally people around a political candidate. The most important thing is to have a singalong chorus, and I knew right away that I’d met that objective.*
The rest was harder. At that point in December, I didn’t feel there was quite enough meaty content on Mr. Weinberger’s web site from which to furnish a song. In fact, having seen him address the Democratic caucus, I thought he came off as an awkward speaker, so I didn’t want to try to set expectations for him giving rousing speeches. (Note: He got steadily better as time went on and now is a polished pro behind a mic.)
However, I knew I could get in a few points:
He’s a native Vermonter, which might make some inroads among voters who might otherwise like his opponent**, long-time Burlingtonian, City Council member, and all-around good guy Kurt Wright.
Though never having run for office –a HUGE liability, especially in a city that seems to like its Mayors to have City Council experience–, he’d worked in the offices of two Senators, so that absolutely had to make it in there.
He had a plan for Burlington…though the specifics of it weren’t immediately clear to me. No matter: The man had a plan!***
Having worked for Habitat for Humanity and, later, included affordable housing in the mix of his real estate development, he qualified as a legitimate affordable-housing candidate.
He had extensive negotiation experience that would be brought to bear with our creditors.
Luckily for me, a song like this doesn’t have to go too in depth into any of these points, so I was able to refer or even allude to these things in the verses which, in a sense, were just there as placeholders between the catchy choruses.
And then…the verse melody.
As you can tell from the first demo, I intended to have a mostly single-note verse that would, in theory, make the chorus seem even more exciting because of the contrast between the two. After recording the singing a few times, I had to face the fact that the verses were just plain flat and unexciting. I’d succeeded in establishing that contrast, all right, but to the detriment of the song itself. What’s more, I wasn’t liking my singing voice on the song. Again, it was just too flat-sounding.
Running out of time, and out of sheer desperation, I reverted to my touchstone: John Lennon. I’ve been a Beatles fan since before I was born (just ask my mom), and my singing style is heavily, heavily influenced by Lennon (e.g., listen to the chorus of last week’s song, “Stay in Your Spaceship”). If I couldn’t sing this song…maybe John Lennon should give it a go.
So I tried it again, threw away the verse melody, and just let John do whatever he wanted. The result: It yielded a more nasal vocal, but damn if John didn’t come up with a more exciting verse melody and response vocal (the “What you say, you say, you say you sayin’?” part in the chorus). Is it acting? Maybe. Did it work? Well, after I published the video (for which there’s a whole other story, maybe a future post), I emailed as many local and political outlets I knew, and that led to…
A generous and well-produced piece by WPTZ’s Bridget Shanahan:
And, honor of honors, joining ace singers and dancers The Mirocialites for a final performance of the song…after the results were in at Mayor-elect Weinberger’s victory party!
It was an enormous amount of fun producing and promoting the song, and I hope it serves as an example that artists can have a impact on political campaigns. As for influencing actual governance after election day’s over, that’s another story…or song.
Maybe that should be my next little civics experiment?
A Green Mountain boy through and through
Worked for two US Senators and knew just what to do
Got his Master’s and he came back home
He’s got a plan to dig us out so take a look and help me shout it
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(What you say, you say, you say you sayin’?)
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(I’m votin’ for Miro, and I ain’t playin’)
He’s got mad negotiation skills
Gonna get with our creditors and sort out all our bills
Makin’ sure your taxes won’t go to waste
He loves our city, just like you, so come on down and help him do it
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(What you say, you say, you say you sayin’?)
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(I’m votin’ for Miro, and I ain’t playin’)
We’ve put up with trouble, don’t wanna defend it
We got in a muddle, it’s time that we end it
The Queen City’s ready for a brand-new day
Won’t you come and help him? Your Fresh Start is on the way
A genuine affordable housing champ
And he cares about food stamps and wheelchair ramps
He’s wicked humble with a giant heart
There’s way too much for just one song, go see MiroForMayor.com
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(What you say, you say, you say you sayin’?))
Oh, oh, oh, let’s go Miro!
(I’m votin’ for Miro, that’s where I’m stayin’)
* Though I regret mispronouncing my candidate’s name. As Thread Magazine informs us, “Miro” is pronounced “muh-ROW”, as in “The Island of Doctor Moreau”. My songwriter’s ear wanted it to be “mee-ROW”, and you could argue that it sounds better in a singing context, but facts is facts. If I could do it over, it’d be “muh-ROW” throughout. Apologies to Mayor Dubs!
** A third candidate, Wanda Hines, joined the race in January, long after I’d written the song. I’ve known Wanda for decades and have tons of respect for her, but, honestly, I thought –and was proven correct– that her campaign was ill-conceived and quixotic from the get-go.
*** Not to be confused with the original “Man With A Plan”, Vermont icon and senior-farmer-turned-actor-turned-actual-candidate Fred Tuttle.
If I’m willing to share a song with you, that means I’m proud enough of it to take the risk of criticism, hostility, or, God forbid, indifference. But some songs mean a little more to me than the rest, and “Stay in Your Spaceship” is in that company.
“Spaceship” started its life in second person: it was all about “you”. (“You catch a ride…You have your airlock shut…”) It suffered accordingly. I never heard the criticism, but I started imagining a listener coming back with, “Oh, I know, I’ll just sit here and hear this song where the dude tells me what an awful person I am.”
Changing the person changed everything, and I found I could now sing it with more sincerity, even if, like any work of fiction, the first-person narrator is not the literal experience of the author. (Which reminds me, I have another song I’ll be rolling out in a few weeks that’ll test this statement strongly…) But it’s still taken me a few years to perform it without lapsing into “you” instead of “I”, and careful listening will turn up a few of these mistakes. So you should definitely go back and listen to it again, like, 14 times…
I think the lyrics speak for themselves. And the spaceship? A metaphor. Someday, if we last long enough to be able to make space flight routine…I’ll have to come up with something else. That would be a wonderful problem to have.
Stay in Your Spaceship
I catch a ride through all the crises of my legendary generation
I have my airlock shut so tightly when the frightened news begins to scream
Are you afraid to see the face of your enemy,
And are you breaking every mirror as a remedy?
When every family on the planet’s in flames
You won’t wait inside
Don’t say that you’ll pay for that ride
Don’t stay in your spaceship and hide
And every need demands a needle, every habit wants its satisfaction
But what I’ve got won’t get me stopped in any clinic or a twelve-step scene
Are you afraid to see the face of your enemy,
And are you breaking every mirror as a remedy?
When every family on the planet’s in flames
You won’t wait inside
Don’t say that you’ll pay for that ride
Don’t stay in your spaceship and hide
Can’t hear the ranting of my neighborhood’s incendiary random madmen
Can’t see the pistols or the prisons when I’m passing through the stratosphere
This is the instant I awaken like an infant to the revelation
I am surrounded in this land of stranded astronauts
All strapped in cockpits,
Lost and desperate
In a space-age dream
Are you afraid to see the face of your enemy,
And are you breaking every mirror as a remedy?
When every family on the planet’s in flames
You won’t wait inside
Don’t say that you’ll pay for that ride
Don’t stay in your spaceship and hide
The white noise you hear in the video’s background is the fans the Coop had set up to mitigate the heat, and, unfortunately, the camera’s mic picked them up as well. Ditto the kids in the audience, which is how you know it was really recorded at Rose Street Coop!
In case you didn’t catch it the first time around, I dedicated the song to Itai, my brother across the waves. But it’s not about him, any more than about any of us.