Theater of the Imagination

Series 1, Episode 2: The World We Live In

November 12, 2020 Peter Link Season 1 Episode 2
Theater of the Imagination
Series 1, Episode 2: The World We Live In
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode we address The World We Live In – its most perplexing problems and, hopefully, some real solutions. Every day we scan the headlines – Pandemic, Racism, Violence Against Women, War, Government, Immigration, Change!  One basic solution will heal all.  These are songs performed by some of my favorite artists, all written, produced and orchestrated by yours truly – except when duly noted.  90% music.

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Welcome to:

Scattershot Symphony

The Music of Peter Link


(That’s me.)


People ask me, “Why “Symphony? You’re not a classical composer.” 

Well, Wikipedia defines “Symphony” as: 

an extended musical composition 

most often written by composers for orchestra – 

often presented in several movements. 



And so, I bring you the music of a lifetime of composition – 

often presented in several movements.  

That’s the nature of these podcasts – 

a scattershot look, at a lifetime of music …


From a variety of genres;

Pop, Rock, R&B, Reggae, Gospel, Musical Theater, Funk, Inspirational and ...

... whatever ...


Basically the music we all grew up on


(Deep Echo)

All from the labyrinthine (la·br·in·thn) mind of composer, Peter Link


(That’s me.)


So, strap on them headphones.  

We’re 90% music with just a smattering of commentary.


And for god sakes, 


 (Crowd)

Turn it up!


This week being the second Installment of this podcast series, I prefer to let the music do the talkin’.  However, if you need to know more about me, please visit Wikipedia.com – Peter Link.  

(Music Sting)

OK, let’s go!


Today we address The World We Live In – It’s problems and some real solutions. These are songs performed by some of my favorite artists, all written, produced and orchestrated by yours truly – except when duly noted.


The first …


Who Will Heal The World

Performed by Jenny Burton


We begin with a song that has often been the closer. This song has been performed all over the world, most often by Jenny, but also at a world women’s conference in China’s Tianaman Square for over two million people. It was also performed most often as the closer for the award winning Jenny Burton Experience, a ten voice Gospel based group that ran for over ten years in New York City and was the first Gospel group to headline in Atlantic City at Resorts International.


So we begin with what I feel is the solution to all the world’s many problems — the necessity for every man and woman to individually step up and do whatever they can do to raise their own consciousness.


The hour has come.  Let us not waste a moment.


Who Will Heal The World

Jenny Burton and The Jenny Burton Experience


I Want My Life Back

Performed by The Jenny Burton Experience

I have lived through two pandemics.  The first one was the AIDS pandemic.  In the first one, I lost more than a hundred friends.  During the beginning of that one, I was working constantly as a Broadway composer in the theater and I watched as talent after talent passed from the scene — actors, directors, designers, dancers and musicians.


At the time I was asked to write a song for an AIDS benefit.  Needing a particular point of view, I met for lunch with ten men who were all in various stages of the disease. We discussed their trials and tribulations, their fears and disappointments.  It was two of the saddest hours of my life to sit with them and hear their tales of woe.


One of them, the worst off, was only able to get one sentence out in a rough whisper.  I had to ask him to repeat it because I sat across the table from him and couldn’t quite hear him.  He looked me dead in the eye and begged, “I want my life back.”  


I had my point of view for the song.


None of the ten survived.


I Want My Life Back

The Jenny Burton Experience


How Are We Raising Our Sons

Performed by Julia Wade

And the women of the cast of Is Anybody Listening?


This next song was performed brilliantly by Julia Wade who starred in my

Is Anybody Listening? Concert that premiered four nights in New York City’s Sheen Center and now can be found in video on YouTube.







When Harvey Weinstein almost single handedly raised the world’s consciousness in the MeToo movement against the sexual abuse of women, I decided to address the problem from the point of view that I believe is the root of the problem. That is the inherited, but totally confused belief that has been passed down throughout the centuries from parent to child.


How Are We Raising Our Sons

Performed by Julia Wade and the women of the cast of IAL


South Africa

Performed by Jenny Burton 

And the cast of Is Anybody Listening?


Racism.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

From The Preamble to the Declaration of Independence


“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal ...”


We. Who is this “we?”

That’s you and me.  That’s what we are taught — by our forefathers, by the Bible, by all the great truths that we all supposedly believe in.


All men are created equal.  

“All men” means mankind.


Where did we fall away from this unalienable right?

Once again the lie has been handed down through the centuries.


Yet the definition of “unalienable” is 

“not capable of being taken away or denied;”

This is a complete contradiction.


If it’s “not capable of being taken away or denied;”, then what happened!?


Racism is a living mistake.


And yet, it goes on and on.


The song, South Africa, speaks to the nobility of the African, the plight of the black man and woman, the confusion of a misplaced nation.










Ah there I see upon Kilamanjaro

The souls of our forefathers

Standing before us

The mem’ries of Medgar

And Malcolm and Martin

Run deep in our blood

The fires of apartheid

Still burn through the tears screaming

“power to the people” 

“power to the people”

Amandla awaytu

“power to the people”


South Africa

Performed by Jenny Burton 

And the cast of Is Anybody Listening?


We Fix It


So what are we gonna do about it?


Ya’ gotta know by now that this racism stuff is a cataclysmic mistake.


So, we better get goin ...


Please consider the wisdom of Ms Cat Russell.




Water


Here’s a major problem that has gotten almost lost in the shuffle of MeToo, the environment, the pandemic, immigration, politics, and government. And yet it could be the biggest problem that we all face — down the line, into the future.


“Where there is no water,

there is no life.”


And ...


“All the water there will be,

Already is …”


Performed beautifully by 

Freedom Bremner, Brian Collazo & Jonathan Singletary

From the cast of “Is Anybody Listening?”


Water









Tear Down The House


By the time we all got to the presidential election of 2016, I believe a lot of people were pretty fed up with the polarization of government going on in our nation’s capital. So they voted for the man who represented a dramatic change in our government — not necessarily for the man, but for the change.  Well, we got the man and we got the change, but did we get what we really wanted?


This song was written and recorded a decade or so before 2016.  I’ll leave it up to you to decide if it still applies today.


Put on your seat belts.


The Jenny Burton Experience

Tear Down The House


What Peace Looks Like


Let’s take a moment now and talk about peace.  I’m speaking with Julia Wade today who happens to be, among many other things, the best selling recording artist of our label, Watchfire Music ... and the singer and co-lyricist with me on this next song.




Hi Julia, welcome.


Nice to see ya’, Pete.


I invited you here today to talk about peace in the world, but you know, we don’t do much talkin’ on this podcast, so, I guess you gotta keep it a little short.


That’s too bad.


Yeah, well ... 


I could write a book about peace.


I know.  Remember, we worked on this lyric together ...


I’ll keep it short.


(Music)


OK then ... What’s this song all about?


Children.


Well, why children?  What do they have to do with peace?


(Her long line)


OK, tell the story.

On My Way Home


The old saying goes, “Home is where the heart is.”, but if you have no home, then where is the heart? Consider the immigrant.  Too often we consider immigrants to be dirt poor people lost in the ocean on crowded rafts.  But immigrants run the whole gamut of cultures, customs, and classes.  Basically, they’re just people lookin’ for a better home than the one they just left.  And the reasons for leaving are as variable as the people themselves.  


In this next song, I envisioned, and then lived, the journey of an elegant man who had a nice family business, and a nice family, until the changing politics of his country’s leadership made it impossible for him to stay.


So he sets out to start his life over again ... in search of a home for his heart.


On My Way Home










Turn, Turn, Turn


I will always remember a moment standing on stage outdoors as the sun set at the foot of the Washington Monument playing before over 250,000 people at a peace rally.  To my left stood Jenny Burton singin’ her heart out and to the left of her stood one of my heroes, Folk legend, Pete Seeger, throwin’ on some harmonies.


So it seems only fitting that decades later, Jenny and I were to take a shot at Pete’s classic song, Turn, Turn, Turn popularized by the Byrds way back then. We rearranged and re-recorded it as a Gospel song.


Why is a classic a classic?  Because it lives through the generations and always makes its point, no matter what the decade.  Turn Turn Turn, lyrics from Ecclesiastes, has not just weathered the 20th Century, but its lyrics have been around in variations for centuries.


I think it is a song about patience — which is one quality desperately needed in our world today.


Who knew, way back then, that the three of us would stand on stage together again?  Jenny Burton — with a Pete on either side of her.


Turn, Turn, Turn


The Times They Are a’Changin’


Speaking of classic statements ... here’s another that will live on down the centuries — Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are a’Changin’ — yet another Gospelization of a tried and true folk song successfully produced, arranged and recorded by Jenny and me.  In the New Normal, let’s face it, we’ll never get back to “the way it was.”  The change and changes will come and we’ll all just have to ride the wave.


So, COME MOTHERS AND FATHERS

THROUGHOUT THE LAND

AND DON’T CRITICIZE

WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND

YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS

ARE BEYOND YOUR COMMAND

YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGIN’

PLEASE GET OUT OF THE NEW ONE

IF YOU CAN’T LEND YOUR HAND

FOR THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’


The Jenny Burton Experience








Live In Peace


For today, no more has to be said on this subject than the lyrics of this next song adapted from II Corinthians & Ephesians.


Julia Wade


Live In Peace


Well, there ya’ have it.  Scattershot Symphony.  

The second movement.  


Next? 

Today’s offerings presented some pretty serious issues and demand of each of us deep consideration in first fixing our own lives and lifting our consciousness to a higher level.  For me. It ain’t been fun to watch our world struggle. We certainly have our work cut out for us in the days ahead.


But hey, we also gotta live, love, laugh an’ be happy!  


So come back and join us again for the third installment of Scattershot Symphony entitled – Just for Laughs – a sometimes goofy, sometimes wacky look at the brighter side of life.


We promise lots of smiles, a few giggles and even some outright guffaws. Coming Soon.  


Also, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. 


And to keep abreast of the latest episode, you can subscribe to Scattershot Symphony from your podcast app of choice.


Thank You

For the Great Songs

Bob Dylan

Pete Seeger

And our Wondrous Vocal Arrangers

Margaret Dorn

Danny Madden

Vocalists From JBX

Margaret Dorn

Branice McKenzie

Stephanie James

Andricka Hall

Chrissy Faith

Steve Abrams

Isaac Clemmon

Keith Fluitt

Lawrence Hamilton

John James

Billy Cliff

From the Cast of IAL

Freedom Bremner

Brian Collazo

Johnathan Singletary

Tanesha Gary

Elle Green

Solange Pratt

Anne Fraser Thomas

Additional Voices

Kevin Osborne

Angela Clemmons

Vaneese Thomas

Darryl Tookes

Jillian Armsbury

Audrey Wheeler

Nicky Richards'


And thanks to Watchfire Music, Nathan Burgdorff and the entire staff for all your work in producing and promoting this podcast.  


A very special thanks also to Stuart Barefoot, our Associate Producer for all your invaluable knowledge and good vibes.


And a posthumous thanks to Ludwig Van Beethoven for your opening 4 bars.


Julia

(over playout music)

This podcast is presented with loving care by the staff at Watchfire Music. If you liked what you heard, we got lots more where that came from. In the meantime, you can find the songs you just heard on watchfiremusic.com/podcast.  There you can purchase the singles or albums and have access to all the lyrics. Also, there you will find all previous podcasts and future scheduling.


If you just became a Scattershot fan, 

tell your friends and Stay tuned!