This Song Dot Land has me singing about the deepest parts of my heart and soul: how to lead well. Lead as in leadership studies. What an odd show.
Originally called I’m Reading Warren Bennis So Sing of Success and Leadership Criticize President Trump.
This set of songs uses a number of novelties to keep things fresh.
- I try some beatboxing around minute 11.
- The song quickly transitions into a song about the disappearing middle class. I don’t say this, but how do we know it’s gone? Because people work full time + jobs and can’t get by.
- At minute 22, things go bonkers as I explore sounds with a slide and an e-bow, singing about how life is a treasure.
- The political section of my show comes up a couple times (the plight of the poor, the struggle to get ahead in a system that keeps the poor behind), but it gets specific about Donald Trump’s unconfident leadership skill between 37:45 and 46:00.
- The song directly after this is celebrating how nature-centric Canada is on a national level. Consider the flags: we fly stars and stripes communicating victory in the USA, Canada celebrates a tree. It’s beautiful.
- 50 minutes in, it gets political again about the ability to have a voice in politics in a system with corporate influence. What value is the voice of a poor individual have in the USA? Part of the inspiration for this is an interview from Fresh Air about the US misdemeanor system that funds departments off the dollars of the poor. I also mention red-lining, based off my past reading and a recent reminder in an episode of Adam Ruins Everything on the institutional racist history of the suburbs.
- 54:22 starts a song where I’ve looped a D note on a looping guitar peddle generated by an e-bow. It sounds like feedback :-).
- 1:00:00 begins a song about family reconciliation between distanced and alienated family members. Part of the inspiration, especially the line, “Do not give up on today’s you / ’cause tomorrow’s will be so much happier / in some way, you’ll be better at something” comes from an On Being interview describing how Jennifer Hecht counsels those considering suicide.
- There are more notes and influences included that I’ll leave a mystery!
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