Song Origins

We recently held a Facebook contest and asked what you would like to see on this blog.

Lisa Silberblatt Massat asked:   

"What inspired some of the many great songs you've written? Their origins? Would be so fun and interesting to know!"

From Laurie:

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5 Days Old

I had made a guitar out of a soy milk box by cutting a hole in the front, wrapping 4 or 5 rubber bands around the outside (so they passed over the "sound hole" i had cut out) and taping a wooden spoon on the end for a neck.  Lucy had been playing with it (she was 2 or 3 at the time) and then handed it to me.  I started strumming the rubber band "strings" and the tones that came out were low and twangy.  I felt like I was playing a blues guitar on the Mississippi Delta (even though I really have no idea what that feels like!) and I started singing. The words that came out were those of the song "Five Days Old."  It felt so good to sing them that I left them exactly as they had come out that first time (although I changed the movements from "sitting here" to other things on the following verses).

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Fast and Slow

This song's development was quite different from 5 Days Old.  7 or 8  years ago, after I released "Under a Shady Tree" and before Lucy was born, I was thinking about writing a song cycle.  I wanted to write songs that all had a connected theme or that would tell a story, possibly as a part of a musical.  Fast and Slow was the first song I wrote.  I felt very aware that  I was grappling with my own tendency to race through life, and my desire to slow down and savor it more. (This hasn't changed that much over the years, I have to admit!)  I recorded myself on a cassette tape (I have so many ideas on little ten minute cassette tapes in a box somewhere) and the original words were different, as I recall.  I don't remember them exactly but I don't think the rabbit or the turtle existed yet.  There were just these two characters, Fast and Slow and I thought they would end up being the characters in a longer story.  Soon after, I got pregnant, and many of my creative musical ideas of the time were put on the back burner as I became absorbed in my life as a new parent.  When I finally started working on the songs for Rocketship Run, I remembered Fast and Slow and started to work on it again.  Writing more from a child's eye view, I wanted to make the characters Fast and Slow easier to visualize, so they became the Rabbit and the Turtle (or the Hare and the Tortoise, a nod to one of my favorite fables as a kid) and I started to rework the rest of the words and the shape of the song.  Some of the words hounded me right up until the end of making Rocketship.  I remember one day right before we started mixing, I knew I finally had to finish the lyrics so that I could record my vocals.  I was in the studio at Bob's apartment (where we recorded and mixed the CD) switching line around and trying out different words into the microphone.  I spent a really long time with "Crickets singing their sound, golden leaves on the ground."  I kept thinking, don't crickets have "sounds" not "sound?"  But "sounds" doesn't rhyme with "ground."  Does this make any sense??  Finally, all the different parts came together, I felt satisfied with what we decided, and the song began its life.

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Victor Vito

In the 90's I had been teaching music to pre-schoolers and I hired my first accountant.  His name was Fred Fishkin.  After a few years I decided to try someone new, his name was Vito and his company was Vasco Accounting.  Vito's full name was Vito Sclafani but for years I thought it was Vito Vasco because of his company name.  I used to joke about my accountants and their alliterative names.  I also was writing songs for the kids I was working with, often on my way to work.  The idea that their names would somehow make a good song was swimming around in my consciousness for a few years before I found myself playing with the words in my mouth during my walk from the subway to Rockefeller University (where I was the music specialist at their Child and Family Center) one day.  By the time I arrived at work, I had basically written Victor Vito in my head.   I tried it out with the kids that day and worried a little that the words Rutabagas and Collard Greens might not have been good choices for a kids' song, but they loved it.  Even the kids who said the words were hard still wanted to learn them.

Comments

[Christopher Thomas]

I am interested in the origins of Pigbasket. I know it's connection to the Ella Fitzgerald song some of which is repeated at the end. What is the story about the rest?

[Rhiannon Houser]

Laurie,

It's obvious that by simply following this blog that we (the members of our family) are fans of your music, but appreciate hearing the story behind your songs.

We listen to your music on our way to preschool each day. On one of these mornings (amidst graduate course work, preparing for my husbands year-long deployment & everyday life of being mom, wife & friend), the lyrics to Fast & Slow really hit home. I made the connection of slowing down & really appreciating all that I've been given.

So, thank you, Laurie & keep doing what you love.

[Aces4life1998]

Nice to know the origin of your songs!!