Amanda McBroom

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September 9, 2021 Leave a Comment

September Song

 

It’s September already.

Official summer has flapped its heated wings and flown off to wherever the old months go. Schools start! The sounds of football fill the air. And songs about Autumn and all its bittersweet beauty filter through my inner jukebox. This morning my jukebox is playing my favorite singer on the planet, my beloved husband George Ball.

A few years ago, after MUCH coaxing, George and recorded a gorgeous CD, called THINK OF ME, produced and arranged by my best pal Michele Brourman and the brilliant Stephan Oberhoff.

One of the great songs on this CD was “September Song”. As Michele says, George brings that song to life in a way that lets us feel all that he’s experienced, loved, lost, learned in his life, and with one of the deepest and truest voices ever. There were moments in the studio when George’s heart and honesty brought Stephan and me to tears. 

This song is one of those moments.

Happy September!

 

PS if you’d like to hear the whole Album (and I highly recommend the experience) it’s available HERE

Filed Under: Hello!

July 8, 2021 4 Comments

Buried Treasure – July’s Gem

 

Well, here it is. July! The fireworks are over, at least those made of gunpowder.  (My shivering little dog is truly grateful.)

I find I am over fireworks. Nowadays I feel that fireworks are just  bombs in fancy costumes…a celebration of weaponry… and  I’ve seen enough to last me a life time.

I wondered, as I listened to the explosions from the High School football field down the hill, if this would be the last celebratory  Independence Day, our country being in such emotional disarray these days. Then I received an e-mail from one of my high school chums, truly the smartest person I know (we’re talking Mensa here) that brought me cheer.  She is an avid reader of everything!

This is what she sent my way…

Just finished reading Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America’s Founders, by Dennis Rasmussen (professor of political science at Syracuse University). Most interesting.  Relies largely on letters and diaries revealing how pessimistic Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Adams were about the future of the U.S.  Only Monroe avoided complete loss of faith in the Constitutional system they had created.

 Somehow I took great comfort in knowing that this country has been here before and still survives. May it be ever thus.

As for this month’s song, it is one of the less buried. I recorded long, long ago. But it just sounded like right now is a good time for its revival. It is called HERE AND NOW and I wrote it with a fabulous songwriter named Tom Snow.

I hope it makes you smile.

 

 

As for the 4th itself in our little town, the parade was back…the kazoo marching band in all its glory, which made me very happy. I always enjoy the bunting and chairs that line the streets in preparation for THE DAY. And I am always sorry to see the chairs disappear.

Here’s the poem I wrote for them.

 

 

THE CHAIRS OF SUMMER *

 It starts with just one chair
Alone…aloof…
Astride a busy corner
By a bus stop
Under a dusty oak

From Costco or Target,
Viet Nam or Taiwan
Worn white plastic
Ragged rainbow webbed
A solitary chair appears
Suddenly, surprisingly
Like the face of Mary
In a taco
A miracle of
The mundane

Tomorrow it will multiply
Magically into four…

Fourteen…forty-five
By week’s end
Four hundred plus
Bound together by bungee cords
Of anticipation

Waiting for the large pink people
Waving small bright flags
Who will plant themselves
Like sunburned petunias
Listening for that first squeal
Of high school clarinet
That rat-a-tat of
Snare drum
The buzz of fifty
Kindergarten kazoos
Flinging  John Phillip Sousa
To the summer skies.

The fire truck will pass by

 The flatbed filled
With princesses
Representing various
Vegetables
Pious folk on hay bales
With banjos
A float or two of bunting
And bed sheets
All will wave and cheer
Rise and go

Leaving the chairs
To sit in silence
As the sun dips
Behind the crisping hill
The sky explodes above
The football field

Then one by four by forty
They will disappear
Back to garages, closets
Invisibility
The annual migration
Complete

Until next July
Calls them out once more
To unveil their
True selves,
Their sacred
Purpose

To be
The chairs
Of summer

Stay cool! Stay positive! Stay kind!

LOVE,

Amanda

Filed Under: Hello! Tagged With: Buried treasure, collaborators, Love Song, Musical Gems, Poems, Poetry, Pop Song, Tom Snow

June 10, 2021 Leave a Comment

Buried Treasure – June’s Gem

 

JUNE …

..is busting out all over, as Mr. Hammerstein once wrote, and so do we seem to be…in every way…out of doors…out of  houses and apartments that have been too small or too comfy for too long… out of pants that used to fit…

…OUT into whatever this new world, with all its new twists and turns offers or demands or threatens.

I am tentatively sticking toes out of the house and garden and into tomorrow. I must admit I have been lucky enough to have a comfy home, a loving husband, several furry children, and a big old garden to make this past isolation sweeter. So I sneak out rather than leap, reluctant to let go of the quiet time. But so happy to reconnect with beloved pals IN THE FLESH!

And I am constantly reminded that HUGGING is THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD!

 

My BURIED TREASURE this month is a song I love that I  had the honor to write with that most wondrous songwriter from Nashville, Mike Reid.

(You probably know one of his huge hits…I CAN”T MAKE YOU LOVE ME IF YOU DON’T. Bonnie Raitt had a #1 hit with it.)

I have a passion for country music. It’s the lyrics, baby, the lyrics!

The stories they tell. This one is called KEEP ON WALKING.

I dare you not to dance around the room!

 

 

 

 

I have not been a complete sloth during my time of isolation. A little bit of song writing here and there with my brilliant pals Ann Hampton Callaway and Michele Brourman. I thought I would share with you the lyric to the latest Mc/Brourman creation.

 

THE END OF ISOLATION 

HEY THERE NIEGHBOR, HOW YOU DOING

NOW THAT ISOLATION’S DONE?

DID YOU GAIN A HUNDRED POUNDS?

WASN’T IT A LOT OF FUN?

 

ME, I’M FEELING BRIGHT AND CHEERY

HEAR ME SING A LOUD TRA LA

MASKS ARE NOW MY FAVORITE FASHION

AND I EVEN FOUND MY BRA

 

I HAVE LEARNED THE ART OF ZOOMING

SOMEDAY SOON MY PANTS WILL FIT

NO MORE STARS SING THEIR BEDROOMS

BELTING SONGS THAT SOUND LIKE SHIT

 

THERE WERE THINGS I LEARNED TO LOVE WHEN

CHARDONNAY BECAME MY PRAYER

HOW TO PLAY THE FLUTE IN SPANISH

THE TRUE COLOR OF MY HAIR

 

WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS I WONDER

WITH THE PANIC AND THE FEAR

ART AND THEATRES ALL WENT UNDER

BUT THE SKIES WERE REALLY CLEAR

 

POLITICS IS SO MUCH BETTER

NOW THE COUNTRY’S SPLIT IN TWO

WITH THE KINGDOM OF THE RED

AND THE REPUBLIC OF THE BLUE

 

YOU KNOW THOSE SHOES I ALWAYS WANTED

YESTERDAY I WENT AND BOUGHT ‘EM

HAVEN’T SEEN MY HUSBAND LATELY?

HONEY, THAT’S BECAUSE I SHOT HIM

 

 

 

Filed Under: Hello! Tagged With: Buried treasure, collaborators, country music, Music, new songs, Poems, Poetry

May 13, 2021 Leave a Comment

Buried Treasure – May’s Gem

During my year of DOWN TIME, I like so many, have been cleaning out my closets, my  drawers, my music files.

I have been traveling back in song-writer time to some of my oldies-but-goodies., looking for more BURIED TREASURES. And I came upon this one, which I had forgotten about, and  upon listening, realized how very fond of it I am.

It is called THE OTHER SIDE OF MY HEARTBEAT.

A love song, of course.

Written and recorded in the 80’s…ye Gods…

and wonderfully sung by a very dear and talented friend of mine named Mara Getz.

It is a demo. The arrangement is definitely 80’s, (which, I have to admit, was my favorite music period.)

I challenge anyone out there, who likes this song, to re-make it and bring it into the 21st century!

So sit back, relax, and enter my WAY BACK MACHINE.

 

My poem for May

 

 

BECOMING

 

I think I shall become a rose

Velvet-crowned

Scarlet headed

A ball of silent fire suspended

Mummy-taut

Between sun and soil

Lanced to earth on emerald spear

Pulled to the eye-clear air-pure void of sky

By iron webs of light

Spun and spinning

From groin and beak of star spider

Sun sparrow

 

Stretched to screaming silent expectation

Leaves outstretched

Thorns tip-tilted

Waiting breathless

For Dawn’s hot tongue

Moon’s cool finger

 

To touch and stroke

To make my skull explode

In shrieks of color

Wails of perfume

Shameless

Silent shouting

 

I am no more a thing tight-closed

A promise in Springtime bud

I am at last a truth

Red loud, blood vulgar

Full-blown at last

   I am become a rose

Happy May!
With Love & Music
Amanda

Filed Under: Hello! Tagged With: Buried treasure, Music, Musical Gems, new songs, Poems, Poetry

March 22, 2021 Leave a Comment

Buried Treasure – An Extra Gem

 

ANOTHER BURIED TREASURE!

Happy birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

I consider Stephen Sondheim a miracle on the planet! 

His music rocked my world, opened my mind to the infinite possibilities of NEW musical theatre,

 and fed my insatiable hunger for brilliant lyric writing.

(When I finally decided that I could write lyrics, it was because, in large part, I had heard his art and was inspired to be my best, most clever lyrical self. Sometimes I even came close to achieving that ambition).

His birthday  is upon us, and I wanted to wish him a happy ,happy birthday and to thank him for being.

I decided the best way to do that was to sing my favorite Sondheim song, arranged by my brilliant musical pals,  Michele Brourman and Stephan Oberhoff.

SEND IN THE CLOWNS, sent with love to  HIMSELF, the one and only Mr.  Sondheim.

Gratefully,

Amanda

PS You can buy the song on iTunes or Amazon

 

 

 

Filed Under: Hello! Tagged With: Broadway, Musical Gems, Musical Theatre, New Music, Recordings, Stephen Sondheim

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