Fall 2022 Dedicated to Greta Thunberg & Pete Seeger Songs of Leadership

Free To Read Dan Berggren 

Dan Berggren’s “Free to Read” is a midtempo acoustic folk song with a marching beat.  It celebrates the freedom to read and the value of open access to information. In his comforting bass voice, Dan sings the titles of banned books. The chorus: “The books you choose are someone else’s walking shoes. We need to be free to read."    

Launched in 1982, banned books week is honoring its 40th Anniversary this Sept. 18-24 with the theme “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” Visit bannedbooksweek.org

danberggren.bandcamp.com/track/free-to-read

Dean Friedman’s upbeat “Ridin’ With Biden” uses traffic and car honks as part of the instrumental part adorning his cool jazz delivery of President Biden’s history, and why Dean-himself-- loves to be Ridin' with Biden" rhymes like "sleepy joe,” and “more decency in his toe than you know--Honk!!!”  Dean’s playing his first New York City show in FIVE years on October 8 at Chelsea Stage + Table.     

What’s a Place Like This Doing in a Girl Like Me?  *Val Kinzler’s “What’s a Place Like This  Doing in a Girl Like Me,” a finalist in the Open Space songwriting contest, is a “Rocky Horror”-esque women-in-the-workplace survival anthem.   

Save the Monarch John Hall & Dar Williams   Male & female duet on this hymn-like singer-songwriter song guitar/bass/drums, environment, Monarch, emperor, queen, king--animals with royal names that are endangered species."Save them from us"

What the Fuck is Going On  Elliott Murphy   Note: Live Recording Rock Troubadour Energetic and Angry hook, Pounding electric guitar, hand claps in time to the music, tempo like "one bourbon, one scotch, one beer": “What the fuck is going on.” song is about the economy. good for the greed factor. dream of a better world  There's one big ponzi scheme all over the world. They (politicians) must think we're stupid; well maybe we are" "Mother Earth" Vocals: Tom Waits Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen  But Jesus Christ, if he was here today, I think he’d be mad as hell.” 

Game of Chicken   Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius  Electric violin-driven hard rock. Dream Theater meets Rush meets Styx. "we're heating up as we run out of time."  People are deliberately daring one another to play with risk.  We're busy bickering while the planet is losing it.  

April Fools Michael Veitch  singer songwriter, male tenor, upbeat folk-rock with electric guitar, with pretty eagles-y harmonies  being fooled by leadership in a most rainy month “behind the curtain lies another strong man.  Pick a corrupt event when you have crazy leaders.  *Michael Veitch’s “April Fools” shows the foolishness a political troublemakers. 

Michael and his fellow songwriters from PBS’s “We Remember: Songs of Survivors” will share stories about writing songs with Holocaust survivors at New York City’s Cutting Room on September 18 and Saratoga’s Caffe Lena on the 22. 

The “Thank you, Greta Thunberg & Pete Seeger” Playlist

Songs about the Environment, Pandemic, Leadership, Relationships

   Dan Berggren & Dean Friedman have songs about dialogues with their daughters. Dean about war, and Dan focuses on the health of our planet.

   One Day (A Child’s Prayer) Hannah & Dean Friedman  Originally written for the 1991 Gulf War, the song is relevant now in the midst of one more, senseless, horrific war. Gentle strings and bells adorn a daughter and father duet.  She’s seeing children killed from missiles, The father sings that “One day there'll be no trace of war, disease, pollution.  If only presidents could see through children’s eyes, if only general could hear the babies’ cries.” Lots of comparisons and contrasts like kids fighting over toys with men fighting over land.   For charity info, please visit  deanfriedman.bandcamp.com/track/one-day-a-childs-prayer

    Looking for Answers Dan Berggren  Acoustic folk song with a hopeful, yet trepidatious.feeling about a daughter asking father what the environment will look like when she grows up. Long term / Short term materialism, greed, easy answers, ask questions, learn what's ahead.  The song is loaded with great advice on long-term thinking. 

Two songs about delusional leaders: one from folk singer-songwriter Michael Veitch and the other from wild prog rocker Joe Deninzon.

April Fools Michael Veitch  singer songwriter, male tenor, upbeat folk-rock with electric guitar, with pretty eagles-y harmonies  being fooled by leadership in a most rainy month “behind the curtain lies another strong man.  Pick a corrupt event when you have crazy leaders.  

The Prism Joe Deninzon & Stratospheerius  (studio and live versions) dynamic and circular electric violin,  male vocals, rock band live recording, song about delusional leaders who lead with stupidity 

 

One more about crazy leaders-- what a woman thinks of crazy guys in the workforce....

        What’s a Place Like This Doing in a Girl Like Me?   Val Kinzler  uptempo & edgy, spoken word female voice like Kathryn Hepburn meets Tim Curry, spooky music. Pinpoints common pain many women go through in different work situations. The song is about a haunted woman inside of a manmade hell. Clever lyrics: graveyard full of rights gone wrong, weak from being strong. dr. jekyll, watch me hide.  dismember me. 

 

My artists offer solutions about improving the environment. Here's a new song from the Slambovian Circus of Dreams and a classic from John Hall.

Beez (I Know Where The Beez Have Gone) Slambovian Circus of Dreams Rock, slow tempo, environment, Americana, vocals like Tom Petty, “Stopped controlling the world,” lyrics offer ideas on how to increase the bees to visit plantlife. “the bees are in my yard, I know where the Beez Have Gone,” “Reteaching me the facts of life” “creatures great and small” chime-y, uses phrase ”yang dang doodle human race” 

   Power John Hall   male tenor, sax, yacht rock sound.  “Give me the warm power of the sun” includes wind and water power in lyrics. "take all your atomic poison power away" "everyone needs some power I'm told to shield them from the darkness and the cold, includes line about corruption” “Some may seek to take control when it’s bought and sold.”  This song was the theme song to the M.U.S.E. Concerts (Musicians United For Safe Energy) and a top 20 hit in 1979.  

A song about the end of the world:  

Armageddon Blues John Roy Zat  male vocals upbeat w/ swing energy & yodels, fiddle, "everybody's singing the armageddon blues.  anybody here know what to do?" keep the music going until... seeing that the world's gonna end, "facebook" and "brew" mentions  

Here are a few different ones that have goal setting thoughts or solutions:

Freedom Loving Heart Phoebe Legere gentle coffeehouse folk song, female voice, gentle guitar, "I got a freedom loving heart, because freedom's got a heart of it own." A gentle encounter with a lying guy, she sings, "I don't know where to start"  

Divided We Fall Bill Leverty  hard rock/classic rock, male vocals, bass, lead guitar,  divided we fall, show me the pain, let me inside. Show me the pain in your heart. And if we find common ground….United We Stand, Divided We Fall.  Song about mending fences in a way that the man wants to see inside his wounded partner’s soul..

   

 

New Music Winter 2022

What’s a Place Like This Doing in a Girl Like Me  Val Kinzler

Uptempo & edgy, spoken word female voice like Kathryn Hepburn meets Tim Curry, spooky music.  haunted woman inside of a MAN-made hell, graveyard full of rights gone wrong, weak from being strong. dr. jekyll, watch me hide. dismember me. 

Well, Well, Well  John Roy Zat 

Male vocals, upbeat violin about surviving it all.  "Well, well, well, I've been down in the well... my own private hell" and coming out of it.  "I rise up now to dance w/ the sun" 

Inside Looking Out Joe Matera  

Tenor male voice w/ best elements of rock & roll British (Yardbirds-y/Spencer Davis/Hollies tempos) meets modern rock instruments and electronica as rock instruments. Analyzing the situation.  hook: "Lost in Transit, Inside Looking Out"   

Valentine’s Day Michael Veitch 

Slow tempo, male singer w/ falsetto, acoustic instruments, setting a winter melting mood, comparing to a true love who blooms "from beneath the ice and snow

One Good Man  Cornelius Eady

Male vocals. percussion, John Henry's hammer, one good man shook people up, against the odds, mock the devil straight to his face, Resist.

Halfway Normal World Dean Friedman

Slow tempo, piano, tenor. covid-related, wanting to hang out friends again at the movies & at home, diner, ballgame, , throw a party and sound effects from ballgame, "I wish I could get back to a halfway normal world."

Save the Monarch John Hall & Dar Williams 

John & Dar Williams duet on this hymn-like singer-songwriter song, guitar/bass/drums, environment, Monarch, emperor, queen, king--animals with royal names that are endangered species