March 10, 2026 by willedare

In Praise Of Pandora

I am a huge fan of Pandora.

Not the woman in Greek mythology whose wedding gift/jar/box released evil sprits upon the world — along with Elpis aka Hope (“a single blessing to ease mankind’s suffering” according to a Greek mythology website I found online).

And not the jewelry company.

I am a fan of the music streaming company named Pandora.

However, I am also aware that the mythology of Pandora IS quite resonant right now.

Some days it does indeed feel like a bunch of evil spirits are ravaging our neighborhoods, our country, other countries, and our planet.

Thank goodness for Elpis ie: hope!

I had completely forgotten this crucial part of the myth — that the gods give us hope as an antidote/counterbalance to all of the evil spirits released by Pandora.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

According to the Greek mythology website mentioned above, Elpis/hope is often depicted as a young woman carrying flowers — hence the flower images in this post.

And music can inspire a sense of hopefulness in many of us — so maybe Pandora isn’t a horrible name for a music streaming company after all.

Now you may be wondering why I am choosing in this blog post to praise the music streaming company named Pandora?

It is because they have been the most consistent beacon of helpfulness and humanity I have encountered during my five-year foray into the business of streaming music.

I wrote about them a little bit in a blog post last March.

Although they are currently part of a larger company, Sirius/XM, their cultural norms of accessibility and friendliness have not (yet) been contaminated/eliminated in a short-sighted quest for increased profit.

I love that all of the Pandora staff members with whom I have interacted are themselves musicians — and many of them use Pandora to share their own music with the world.

I have been told that Pandora listeners are located only in the USA.

But apparently some people around the world are clever enough to use a VPN — a virtual private network which, according to NordVPN “protects your internet connection and privacy online (by creating) an encrypted tunnel for your data.”

If you use a VPN, you can stream music via Pandora from anywhere there is internet service on planet earth (if I am understanding this VPN option correctly).

I think using a VPN also allows for some privacy regarding one’s internet history — which might be wise for more of us to consider using?

Anyways, back to Pandora…

The Pandora staff have created a bunch of free promotional tools which musicians like me can use — such as creating personalized audio messages to share with one’s listeners.

One can also feature a particular song for up to two months at a stretch (six times per year…)

And every month Pandora offers two free training sessions via Zoom, which allow independent musicians to learn how to use their promotional tools and — more importantly — to build relationships with real human beings.

This is the crucial piece that so many companies seem to have completely devalued in recent years.

Many (if not most) of us human beings want to build relationships with the people in our daily lives — whether it’s our mail carrier, or a teller at our local bank, or the staff at our local grocery store, or the folks who run our favorite restaurant, or the doctors/nurses/staff at our local hospital, etc. etc. etc.

Chatbots may save money, but they do not help to build actual human relationships.

And it’s actual human relationships which tend to create a foundation of customer loyalty.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

As regular readers of my blog are well aware, there is a steep learning curve when one starts releasing music to be streamed via companies like Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, Tidal, Amazon Music, etc.

In addition to recording a song, mixing it and then mastering it, one also needs to get a graphic designed for it, select a company to distribute it (I use CD Baby), register it with the Copyright Office in Washington DC, and then enter it into one’s account at various organizations which collect money for the use of one’s song — including ASCAP, SoundExchange, Songtrust and the Mechanical Licensing Collective.

CD Baby used to have wonderful customer service until it was bought by another company which made a lot of changes…

And now the company which bought CD Baby — Downtown Music — is being sold to Universal Music Group (one of the three largest music conglomerates) after they were given permission from a European tribunal weighing the anti-trust implications of such a purchase.

G-d only knows what changes this purchase will bring into the lives of tens of thousands of independent musicians like me who currently use CD Baby to distribute our music…

Maybe UMG will use some of their enormous clout on our behalf?

Maybe they will improve customer service at CD Baby?

Or maybe they will find new ways to cheat, fleece and otherwise take advantage of us?

Time will tell…

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I can attest to the effectiveness of Pandora’s promotional tools.

My total streams on Pandora recently surpassed 200,000.

So I will continue to use these promotional tools AND will continue to remain grateful for Pandora’s terrific staff.

The song I included at the beginning of this blog post was written for a show called FUNNY FACE which starred Fred Astaire and his older sister Adele in the1920s.

I attempted to release this version, which I recorded with pianist Doug Hammer, last year.

But CD Baby mysteriously messed up the metadata attached to the recording — listing Doug as a primary artist rather than a featured artist — and he asked me to remove it from distribution so that it wouldn’t confuse the fan base (much larger than mine) he has built for his solo piano compositions.

Sadly, I have been unable to get any definitive answer from the customer service staff at CD Baby about how this mistake happened in the first place and whether I’ll ever be able to re-release it with the correct designation (featured artist not primary artist) for Doug.

Deep sigh.

Thank you to Doug for recording it with me.

Thank you to the Gershwin brothers for writing it in the first place.

Thank you to Pixabay for the lovely photos of spring flowers.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

You are always welcome to visit my website — willsings.com — if you are curious to learn more about my musical life here on planet earth.

I’ve begun a new postcard-writing campaign with a bunch of people in my neighborhood.

We are reminding Wisconsin voters that they have an important Supreme Court election coming up on April 7th.

It’s a small task.

But doing something — anything — to withstand/offset the chaotic cyclone of destruction being unleashed by our current political leadership helps me stay connected to a tiny sense of Elpis/Hope.

As does the melting snow outside…

And the promise of spring flowers!

February 26, 2026 by willedare

Throwback Thursday #9

One of the great things about doing a Throwback Thursday is re-visiting old blog posts.

Today I am throwing back to January 15, 2014 — and a post about seeing Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” painting in person.

I had completely forgotten this visit to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC — probably made with my friends Steve and Kate.

I had not forgotten, however, Don McLean’s lovely (and long) song about Van Gogh.

Doug Hammer and I recorded a version of this song — which eventually I hope to release.

For the time being it is accessible via this 1/15/14 blog post.

I have also included a few iris photos from Pixabay in today’s post because Van Gogh painted iris on more than one occasion..

And I am eager for spring to arrive here in New England!

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I have spent a lot of time shoveling snow in recent days.

Now snow is piled high on both sides of our sidewalk.

This limits one’s visibility when crossing the street…

It also makes parking a challenge for the folks who work in a nearby office building.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

So far this winter our furnace is behaving.

And I haven’t injured my back.

And I remain grateful for food, shelter, electricity, heat and a functioning internet.

All this snow may also help our reservoirs remain in better shape as the year unfolds…

We shall see!

Thank you to the wonderful photographers at Pixabay.

And thank YOU for checking out yet another one of my blog posts.

You are always welcome to visit my website — WillSings.com — by clicking here.

PS: More snow (or possibly rain) is forecast in the Boston area for next week…

February 17, 2026 by willedare

Falling In Love With Love…

Greetings from East Arlington, MA — just outside of Boston in the USA!

Today I am featuring a beautiful song with lyrics by Lorenz Hart and music by Richard Rodgers.

As this TIME Magazine cover attests, they were a very potent musical and cultural force in the early-middle 20th century.

And I am very happy that a recent movie — BLUE MOON (made by the wonderful director Richard Linklater and starring Ethan Hawke as Larry Hart) — has renewed interest in Hart’s life and musical legacy.

Here’s a link to a great article in The Hollywood Reporter about making the film if you are curious.

It turns out that BLUE MOON was a decade-long labor of love which was filmed on a beautifully re-created version of Sardi’s — a famous bar/restaurant in Manhattan’s theatre district.

Reading the article brought tears to my eyes.

You can also click here to read a blog post I wrote about Larry Hart exactly ten years ago if you are even more curious.

And I once wrote a blog post about two of his and Rodgers’ hit songs — “You Took Advantage Of Me” and “I Could Write A Book” — which you can read by clicking here.

Not mentioned in the BLUE MOON movie is how devoted Hart was to his mother — with whom he lived his entire life.

Hart’s mother died around the same time that OKLAHOMA (the first musical his decades-long collaborator Rodgers created with another lyricist — their mutual friend Oscar Hammerstein II) opened on Broadway.

So he was grieving this huge familial loss simultaneously with the at-least-partial loss of his friendship AND professional relationship with Rodgers.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

And I had forgotten (until I re-read my blog post from ten years ago) that Mr. Hart had also begun a collaboration about underground freedom fighters in France with a composer who had recently escaped from Nazi-occupied Europe.

So, as an American-born Jew whose parents had emigrated to NYC in the late 19th century from Germany, he also may have also been feeling a significant amount of grief, rage, despair, terror, and “there but for the grace of G-d” empathy for the millions of Jews still remaining in Europe.

And let’s not forget that American Nazis were holding huge rallies at places like Madison Square Garden during this time as well!

Yet another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I don’t know how much it was public knowledge that LGBTQ folks were being sent to Nazi death camps, but I am guessing that theater people — such as composer Kurt Weill, who had managed to escape from Berlin to Paris to Manhattan — had plenty of heart-breaking anecdotes to share about the fates of their previous artistic partners who happened to be LGBTQ and/or Jewish and/or Roma.

All of this was also not mentioned in BLUE MOON. although Mr. Hawke and Mr. Linklater and some of the other actors such as Andrew Scott apparently did a lot of research before they began filming the movie — so I am guessing that they had most/all of this information influencing the subtexts of their acting performances.

And another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

There are certainly some powerful parallels with what was happening leading up to Larry’s death in 1943 and what is currently unfolding here in the USA.

One thing I wrote about in my blog post from ten years ago — and which BLUE MOON does explore — is the paradox of Larry Hart (a somewhat closeted gay man) falling in love with and proposing to women.

And the song “Falling In Love With Love” may illuminate some of Hart’s thoughts and feeling on this topic/phenomenon/tendency.

What do YOU think?

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his exquisite piano playing and comprehensive production skills.

Thank you to John Childress (and his collaborator at the time named Laurel, I think…) for taking this photo many years ago when I still had plenty of hair.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his lovely graphic design work.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another one of my blog posts.

You can click here to stream “Falling In Love With Love” on Pandora, YouTube, Apple Music, etc. if the spirit moves you.

And you are also always welcome to vis it my website: WillSings.com.

There’s all sorts of info and music there — and you could join my email list of you are so inclined.

January 16, 2026 by willedare

I Walk With Music

Hoagy Carmichael — NBC Television, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

This month’s song is a minor hit from what is sometimes called the Great American Songbook.

Composer Hoagy Carmichael and lyricist Johnny Mercer created it for a Broadway show — I WALK WITH MUSIC — which did not prove to be a success.

But it did give us this sweet song.

I discovered it when I was putting together an hour-long program of songs by Hoagy Carmichael — who also wrote the music for standards including “Georgia on My Mind,” “Stardust,” “The Nearness of You,” and “Skylark” (another song co-written with Johnny Mercer).

Pianist/producer Doug Hammer and I had a lot of fun recording it.

I just re-read the Wikipedia entries for Johnny Mercer and for Hoagy Carmichael.

I learned that — later in his life — Hoagy appeared as a songwriter character on THE FLINTSTONES animated TV show and also participated in a TV special with Fred (Mr.) Rogers.

And I was reminded that Johnny Mercer was a bit of a Jekyll/Hyde personality — beloved during the daytime and then drunk at parties saying mean things during the night — after which he would send flowers and an apology the next morning.

Johnny Mercer (from the Johnny Mercer Foundation website)

In addition to being successful songwriters, Hoagy and Johnny were also successful performers.

Later in his life, Hoagy worked as an actor in movies and TV shows, while Johnny recorded many hit singles over the years — of his own songs and as well as songs written by other people.

Johnny also was one of three men who founded and ran Capitol Records very successfully for many years.

He was mentored early in his career by Yip Harburg (the lyricist who co-wrote “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?” “Over The Rainbow,” “How Are Things In Glocca Morra?” and “It’s Only A Paper Moon” among many other hits).

And near the end of his own life Mercer became a fan of singer-songwriter Barry Manilow.

In fact one of my favorite Johnny Mercer songs — “When October Goes” — was created after Mr. Mercer died with music by Barry Manilow and unpublished lyrics given to Mr. Manilow by Mercer’s widow, Ginger.

Both Mercer and Carmichael kept writing songs even after rock-n-roll had significantly altered the landscape of popular music — which meant that their work was less and less in demand…

I take inspiration from their creative perseverance as well as from the rich legacy of hit songs they left for all of us to savor.

On a personal note, I have begun attending several open mics on a regular basis, sharing my original songs while accompanying myself on ukulele.

Performing like this has been a good workout for my brain because I now have to remember both lyrics AND chords.

It has also been interesting to see how other regular open mic attendees do (and don’t) welcome one into each musical micro-community.

The key, I think, is simply continuing to show up.

Gradually we reveal ourselves to each other through our song choices and through the things we say between songs (the open mics I attend allow a person to perform 2-3 songs per night).

And trust begins to form…

And curiosity begins to arise…

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

All of the venues are also registered with ASCAP, the performing rights organization I joined several years ago.

So after each open mic, I log onto my ASCAP account and enter which of my original songs I performed.

In theory this is supposed to generate a tiny stream of income for me, but I haven’t seen anything yet…

One final thing I have been appreciating about attending open mics is that they give me a chance to fine-tune the lyrics of songs I haven’t yet recorded (but plan to record with Doug Hammer later this year).

If you would like to stream “I Walk With Music,” you are welcome to click here for a link to many different digital music platforms.

Thank you to pianist/composer/producer Doug Hammer for our ongoing — and ofter very playful — musical collaboration.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for his photo and design expertise.

Thank you to Wikipedia (to which I give a tiny financial contribution each month) for being such a useful source of information.

Thank you to all of the terrific songwriters, living and dead, whose work touches our souls and lifts our spirits on a daily basis.

Thank you to Jeno Szabo for his beautiful image from Pixabay.

And thank you, dear reader, for making it through another one of my (now mostly monthly) blog posts.

December 27, 2025 by willedare

Puttin’ On The Ritz

If we scratch the surface of almost any cultural artifact — in this case a song written in the late 1920s by Irving Berlin — it is very likely that we will discover layers of herstory/history which have been buried, misplaced, overlooked or otherwise airbrushed out of the picture.

Wikipedia informs me that Irving Berlin wrote his original version of this song in May 1927, and it was first included in a 1930 movie — when “talkies” were an exciting new technology.

“The title derives from an (African-American) slang expression ‘to put on the Ritz’ — meaning to dress very fashionably — (which) was inspired by the opulent Ritz Hotel in London.”

And Mr. Berlin’s first set of lyrics do indeed describe very well-dressed African-Americans strolling on Lenox Avenue in Harlem…

However, when Fred Astaire performed “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in the 1946 movie BLUE SKIES, Mr. Berlin re-wrote the lyrics to become the version which I recorded with Doug Hammer playing his Schimmel grand piano.

“Lenox Avenue” became “Fifth Avenue,” and “Spangled gowns upon the bevy/Of high browns from down the levy — all misfits” become “Different types who wear a day coat/Pants with stripes and cutaway coat — perfect fits.”

This appears to be yet another example of how African-American culture inspires — and then gets appropriated and re-purposed to earn money for non-African-Americans.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

And here I go, continuing this sad cultural practice, by recording my own version with Doug!

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

We did this when I was creating an hour-long program of songs written for — or made famous by — Fred Astaire.

This version is the second or third take Doug and I recorded — and it’s a great example of how spontaneous and playful our creative process can be when we are both “in the zone” together.

Although there are a few more winter holiday favorites written by Jewish songwriters which I would like to record with Doug, we never got around to doing that in 2025… so I have released “Puttin’ On The Ritz” in December as a nod to upcoming New Year’s Eve festivities…

If you’d like to stream it via Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, etc, you can click here.

Thank you to Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons for these photos.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his piano-playing and his producing/engineering skills.

Thank you to Stephen Charles Fischer for his graphic design work.

Thank you to Irving Berlin for writing — and re-writing — this song.

Thank you to the African-American residents of Harlem who inspired Mr. Berlin to write this song in the first place.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to this blog post!

December 4, 2025 by willedare

Throwback Thursday #8

The only flowers remaining these days in my neighborhood are chrysanthemums and asters.

They are a hardy bunch, bless them.

We’ve had a few frosts; so most bees and butterflies are gone…

I’m already counting down the days to the winter solstice, when daylight in the Northern Hemisphere will again start to lengthen!

In recent weeks I’ve re-discovered the pleasures of tea — my current favorite being Celestial Seasonings’ Bengal Spice with some honey — and soup (today chicken, squash, carrot, potato, onion, garlic and ginger, are simmering together on the stove…)

Yum!

I hope your Thanksgiving was delicious and calm and heartful.

Today I am throwing back to a very short blog post about why I love leading Music Together classes which features a somewhat silly song which I recorded using GarageBand on an Apple laptop many years ago.

“I’m A Baby Monkey” remains very popular with children of a certain age…

In closing, I thank you for reading this blog post and possibly jumping back to my Throwback Thursday post

My stats are fluctuating from modest (seven visitors on 11/28/25) to quite a few (55 visitors on 12/2/25).

I don’t know if my site is being hacked/scraped by some sort of bot or if these are actual visitors.

To quote singer-songwriter Iris DeMent, I’ll just “let the mystery be…”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

May your spirits remain light as we head towards the shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere!

ps: Thank you, too, to the great photographers at Pixabay…

November 21, 2025 by willedare

Under My Umbrella

Autumn has arrived in New England.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

Autumn is probably my least favorite season.

Partly this is because I do not like being cold.

Partly this is because I do not like the shorter days.

And partly this is because I do not like being reminded that everything dies in the end.

I do however like being reminded of how amazing mother nature is — creating a system of fully recyclable and compostable solar collectors in the form of LEAVES!

Hurrah for leaves and photosynthesis!

I wrote the first version of “Under My Umbrella” while camping in North Truro on Cape Cod.

Then my friend Molly Ruggles wrote a new bridge section — which is the version she and I and our friend Carole Bundy recorded (in the player above).

You can click here to read — or re-read depending upon how long you’ve been following my blog — a short post from 9/10/24 which features the earlier (pre-Molly) version of this song.

And here is a link to the Molly, Will & Carole version in case you might be willing to play/like/share it on your favorite music streaming platform.

We recorded it with me, Carole and Molly singing plus Molly playing Doug Hammer’s Schimmel grand piano in his studio north of Boston, MA.

Thank you to Doug for his excellent engineering and music production skills.

Thank you to Molly for writing a new bridge and also a bunch of lovely harmonies for all of us to sing.

Thank you to Molly for playing piano AND for designing our graphics.

Thank you to the gifted and generous photographers at Pixabay.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to another of my blog posts!

I remain very grateful for our wonderful WordPress community.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

October 17, 2025 by willedare

Both Sides Now

What a song!

I, like many, have long loved Joni Mitchell’s original recording of “Both Sides Now” — as well her later version with an orchestra.

Pianist (and engineer and mixer) Doug Hammer and I recorded our own version to accompany one of my sweetheart’s annual ART/Word group exhibitions.

The theme that year was BALANCE.

I was not in the greatest voice when we recorded our version, but Doug was able to polish things to a lovely sheen during our fixing/mixing process.

This summer and fall I’ve been riding the train (actually the train + bus due to ongoing track repairs in Massachusetts to fix a sinkhole situation) a lot from Boston to Ithaca, NY — where a bunch of my family members (sisters, niece, grandniece, nephews, mother, and cousins galore) live.

This has given me plenty of time to gaze at passing scenery, and I have seen some extraordinary cloud formations.

At dusk they are often illuminated by the last rays of sun coming over the horizon, which makes them even more magical.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I love that “Both Sides Now” leaves the listener with no concrete answers.

Ms. Mitchell writes, “I really don’t know clouds (or love… or life…) at all.”

And I also love Ms. Mitchell’s description of falling in love — “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels — the dizzy dancing way you feel — when every fairy tale comes real — I’ve looked at love that way.”

It immediately reminds me of my own history with that feeling — and how intoxicating and exhilarating it was…

And I also remember how devastated I was when my various romances came to an end.

Ahh, love…

Ahh, loss…

Ahh, life…

Ahh, clouds…

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

What are YOUR associations with this wonderful song?

I’d be honored to read any thoughts and feelings in the comments section below.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for being such a great musical ally for three decades.

And thank you for his wonderful, well-tuned Schimmel grand piano…

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for designing this lovely graphic.

Thank you to the talented photographers at Pixabay.

Thank you to Gretje Ferguson for taking this photo of me many years ago.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to this blog post.

You are welcome to click here and stream/like/playlist/share our version of Joni’s song.

And you can click here to visit my website if you are curious to learn more about my musical life here on planet earth.

September 19, 2025 by willedare

May The Bees Keep Buzzing

One of my favorite bloggers is Dan Kennedy, who has worked at many different media organizations in the Boston area and is now a professor at Northeastern University.

He writes about what is happening in — and to — the media here in the USA.

I first became aware of our Boston media landscape when I worked as PR Director at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education in Harvard Square.

My boss Diane Wortis and I created (and then produced annually for five years) a day-long conference called “Arts & The Media” which allowed us to call everyone who had anything to do with arts coverage in the Greater Boston area and invite them to participate on a panel.

This included folks from our big papers (including The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, and The Boston Phoenix) — to folks at radio and TV stations, to folks who worked for smaller local papers and magazines.

Our conferences started happening as Mitt Romney’s private investment company Bain Capital was buying up a bunch of local daily and weekly newspapers in the greater Boston area and consolidating them into one company — which meant that the staff at all of these formerly independent papers was being slashed and lots of generic (non-town-specific) content was starting to be written which could be printed in many different papers within this new chain.

I bore witness firsthand to the degradation of media coverage as a result of large-scale, corporate consolidation.

And twenty five years later, that trend of media consolidation has only worsened.

All of this is to explain why I write near the end of this song — “May our press remain vital, always truth pursuing…”

Reading our local papers and nurturing relationships (via hundreds of hand-written thank you cards) with local arts writers and arts editors for over a decade helped me to understand how crucial the Fourth Estate is to a functioning democracy with healthy checks and balances.

Dan writes in his blog about what is going poorly (media consolidation continues, ad revenues drop…) and also where there are glimmers of hope via new models of local journalism.

And sometimes he weighs in on journalistic best practices.

He steered me to a speech Marty Baron gave at Brandeis University a few years ago which touched upon the fascinating topic of objectivity.

Mr. Baron used to be the editor of The Boston Globe and then became the editor of The Washington Post.

Here’s the heart of what Marty had to say:

“Objectivity is not neutrality.

It is not on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand journalism.

It is not false balance or both-sidesism.

It is not giving equal weight to opposing arguments when the evidence points overwhelmingly in one direction.

It does not suggest that we as journalists should engage in meticulous, thorough research only to surrender to cowardice by failing to report the facts we’ve worked so hard to discover…

The idea is to be open-minded when we begin our research and to do that work as conscientiously as possible.

It demands a willingness to listen, an eagerness to learn — and an awareness that there is much for us to know.

We don’t start with the answers.

We go seeking them, first with the already formidable challenge of asking the right questions and finally with the arduous task of verification.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

May our media in the USA stop kowtowing and collapsing… and realize that they are just as vulnerable as the rest of us to arrests in the middle of the night, arrests while we are walking from campus to our apartment, arrests while we are in a courthouse following all the rules about how to become a US citizen, arrests while we are picking vegetables, arrests while we are doing our laundry in the middle of the night.

Anothert deep breath in.

And another deep breath out.

You can click here for a link to “May The Bees Keep Buzzing” on Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube, Spotify, etc.

If you might be kind enough to stream it —and maybe even “like” it and add it to one of your playlists if you are so moved — that would be very helpful to feed positive data into the various algorithms which decide whose music gets played and how often…

I have selected flower photos from the wonderful photographers at Pixabay which I hope will help to offset the serious tone of this blog post.

Thank you to them and their skill and their generosity.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sublime collaborative skills — both playing his Schimmel grand piano AND using his Apple computer like a 21st century wizard.

And thank YOU for listening to and reading yet another one of my blog posts!

August 26, 2025 by willedare

I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby…

My dad used to sing this song to me and my siblings at bedtime.

It’s another one co-written by Dorothy Fields with composer Jimmy McHugh.

This song recently entered the public domain, which means that we — Molly Ruggles, Carole Bundy and I — can now release our own version of this beloved standard.

Molly is a pianist, singer, songwriter and arranger who worked at Harvard and MIT for many years.

She kept her love for music alive during that period of her life by writing songs (including a complete musical) and working as the music director at a UU church.

During the past few years, I have discovered that Molly has a fascinating musical gift.

She likes to write entirely new sections for pre-existing songs!

Some people write new lyrics for songs, and she has been known to do that as well.

But I have never met anyone who can write an entirely new section which matches the musical style (melody, chords AND lyrics) of the original song in such a seamless way.

If you listen to our recording (in the player above and or via a music streaming service), the entirely new part written by Molly begins “I gotta tell you, I wish that I had a big bank account” and ends with “and I have one simple goal — giving my love to you!”

It is brilliantly done.

She also wrote a new section for Cole Porter’s song “Let’s Do It” (which recently entered the public domain) and for a few others which are not yet in the public domain.

We perform those songs live but cannot release a recording of them (which would include Molly’s new section) without getting permission from the people who wrote them and/or their descendants and/or the music publishing companies which own them.

Going forward, I am hoping that Molly focuses her creativity on songs which are already in the public domain — of which there are MANY from the early years of what is now called “the Great American Songbook.”

Image by Jasminka Kovačević from Pixabay

For example, a bunch of Irving Berlin’s earliest hits are now in the public domain including “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”

And one of my favorite songs of all time, “Makin’ Whoopee“ is also in the public domain, I think.

Thank you to Molly for creating this great arrangement of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby” as well as playing piano and singing on it.

Thank you to Carole for singing on it.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for engineering our recording session and then mixing our version with me via Zoom.

Thank you to the generous and talented photographers at Pixabay — who let me use their beautiful photos in my blog posts.

And thank YOU for reading and listening to yet another blog post.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

ps: If you are inspired to stream our version of this song, you can click here for links to various companies including Pandora, Apple Music and Spotify.

amusicalifeonplanetearth

Music and the Thoughts It Can Inspire

In Praise Of Pandora

Throwback Thursday #9

Falling In Love With Love…

I Walk With Music

Puttin’ On The Ritz

Throwback Thursday #8

Under My Umbrella

Both Sides Now

May The Bees Keep Buzzing

I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby…