Series 1, Episode 48: Laid Back and Intimate- Part 2

If you haven't heard it yet, start with Part 1. 

Think ballads and relaxed grooves. Take a break and cool out over the beauty and intimacy of some of Link’s best ballads sung by 4 or 5 top vocalists who have worked with him over for 3 or 4 decades and are all still going strong. All that's required of you are a good pair of headphones, an easy chair  and the time to do it. Get the inside stories on how and why the songs were written – the story behind the real life drama. Take a walk in the snow, an evening on the beach, a ride through the desert of the great Southwest, a night under the stars and so much more. Part 2 is the same concept as above presenting 9 more songs,

Theater of the Imagination is presented by Watchfire Music

Transcript

Peter Link 0:08

Welcome to Scattershot Symphony. The music of Peter Link. That's me. Hey y'all. This week being the forty-eighth episode of this podcast, I prefer to let the music do the talking. However, if you need to know more about me, please visit Wikipedia.com or Peter Link. This episode is entitled Laid Back and Intimate, Volume Two of a Two Volume Set. Welcome back. You're here because you probably enjoyed Volume One of the same title. If you have not experienced Volume One, you might start with that, but it's not totally necessary that you do the two laid back and intimates in proper sequence. But it is the best. Today we'll deal with nine more songs that fit easily into the criteria of laid back and intimate. Here we go. I've always loved the expression a little bird told me. My mother used to use it a lot. A little bird told me you forgot to make your bed, Peter. A little bird told me it was you who ate all the olives. As if birds could talk. Well, it turns out they can. As it turns out, at the very first light of dawn, one morning, in the little town of Bethlehem, thousands of years ago, a little bird was given the task to spread the good word across the world. Not just to all the birds, but to all the people as well. And so that little bird did exactly that. And a new age dawned. At least all that happened in a Christmas song I once wrote. Then Julia Wade came along and made that story a reality. She even sang all the background parts as well. Here's proof that birds can talk to us humans. Julia Wade, bird song.

Speaker 2 2:40

Silver bird fly, spiritual bird sing, bird song. The Christ is born. Spread the word, let fly the song of peace, sweet release, sail on silver bill across the world. Spread the word a new age dawns as the silver bird streaks across the red size. Sail on silver bird across the world. Sail on little bird, and take this message that the Son of God has joined us on this earth and brings us nothing but the good word. Sail and sing your song bird as you swarm the mountains, as you wind along the rivers of life, sing it to each heart, sing into the mind of mankind. Humble where Christ is born. Spread the word, go forth, his kingdom come, a band you lum back and forth between the prophecy and the unforeseen. The time has come, a new age songs, and the world will now change from one of song to one abounding hope. Sail on silver burn across the world. Sail on little bird and take this message that the Son of God has joined us on this earth and brings us nothing but the good word. Sail and sing your song bird as you wing your way through cities, through the masses and the chaos of love. Sing it to each soul. Sing it to the shambles of men, silver bird fly unto the people. Tell them the Christ is born. This Christmas born. The Christ is born. This Christmas born.

Speaker 1 7:31

We had no time for honeymoon because she got a job singing at the Palermo Opera off in Italy for three whole months. I was elected to stay home and sit around missing my new wife. A producer I was working with at the time took pity on me well into the second month and bought me a round-trip ticket to Palermo. What a pal. I went for three weeks. Julia was pretty busy while I was there in rehearsals and performances, but the time was a joy I will never forget. And then, all too short, it was time to go home. The trip to the airport in the cab was full of tears. I suddenly faced yet another six weeks of loneliness in New York City. Julia had an early morning rehearsal that she had to get back to, so even our last moments at the airport were cut short. Suddenly, there I was at thirty five thousand feet on my way home, leaving you.

Speaker 10 9:26

I flew away from you across the Mediterranean moon. I closed my eyes, and there you were deep inside me, but you're still down there a speck upon the ocean, an aspect of you, a speck up in the sky, hearing it, lost in the emotion of the bag in you. It's just about the hardest thing I ever do. It's just about the hardest thing I ever done. Just minutes ago under the Mediterranean moon. I'll never know how I could walk away and leave you. A speck upon the ocean. I'm up here. Speck up in the sky. Lost in the emotion of just about the hardest thing I ever do. It's just about the hardest thing I've ever done. It's just people You're moving on down there, smiling through your teeth. I flash off and wrestle with my feet. And oh God, believe it's just because we come to the body.

Speaker 1 14:20

She even got a job singing in Boston every Sunday morning at a worldwide church for seven years. Well, there go the weekends. Actually, I never regretted those miss weekends because the job gave her a worldwide audience, and during the days she was home, we probably recorded half of her fifteen albums together. The toughest times were always when she would get musical roles and be away for months. The best part of this, however, was that her being gone a lot engendered a great many love songs. Not all my love songs were sad, but the songs of missing seemed to run the deepest. Yours truly.

Speaker 10 17:55

But when she leaves I lost and humbled, biting my time, counting the days.

Speaker 9 18:15

Watching the clock.

Speaker 10 19:16

And her smile and her lap and the song with the bigger.

Speaker 1 20:43

I worked for a number of years with a wonderful pianist named Alan Smallwood. Alan had created a terrific piano track for me of a song I wrote in my musical called Island when he was the musical director. Jenny Burton sang the song in the show, but the original lyrics were too specific to the story of the show. And as a standalone song, it it just didn't make much sense. So it sat in the trunk for a decade until I put it into another musical with the same results. It would only last as long as the show lasted. So it again ended up in the trunk. Then one day, while browsing the trunk, I came across Alan's piano track. It was too good to waste away in a trunk, so I ran it through my imagination and discovered this crazy day when a chance meeting and sudden attraction became a near miss and never happened. I think most of us have had these moments of whatever. Jenny Burton Crazy Day.

Speaker 13 22:32

Lay around and dream afternoon away. Thought about the way you smile when I'm in your eyes. I did not think I'd miss you when we laughed and said goodbye. But to my surprise, something score and the sun the dreams in the air, the sun and the shine. Me and the birds and the tail to the top of the sunset like to give me a shine. Now the colours are blue in the absence of you. Keep taking me through this change. I had a crazy drifted through them all in my disarray. Never knew what I knew now. Never saw your face. And you vanished into space. But the more touch, the more this next song was written for a concert attraction we called Is Anybody Listening?

Speaker 1 26:16

The concert performed three sold-out nights in New York City to standing ovation audiences and received this critic's response. Quote, bless you for releasing this right now. Thank you for reminding us that we are all a part of glorious and challenging humanity, and that each of us can participate in making it even better. Fortunately, we three-camera videoed the show, which now has over eleven thousand views on YouTube. One of the issues was the subject of water. So I wrote a song on the cycle of water called Of All Things Water. On a small budget, we threw this show together in three weeks. Halfway through the second week of rehearsals, I realized that our cast had far too much to learn in the time we had left. So I cut a couple of songs that would require too much time to rehearse. Stage, light, and costume the show. There were three men in the cast who, when I cut their trio number, were just as disappointed as me. Brian Colasso, Freedom Bremner, and Jonathan Singletary called me into their dressing room three days before our first audience and asked me to listen to something. One of them had my orchestra track on his cell phone, and the three of them sang the entire song for me, each one singing their correct harmonies with all the lyrics memorized perfectly. I was shocked to tears. The commitment to getting it right at all costs. The commitment to the art. We didn't have time to stage it or light it, so we just put the three guys on the three stools, and as usual, they took care of the rest. You can go to watchfire music.com forward slash water video and watch it as well. Brian Colasso, Freedom Bremner, and Jonathan Singletary Water.

Speaker 30:19

May have fallen. Halfway around the world. A hundred million years ago, by a mighty mama brought the star.

Speaker 12 31:41

Put them all together. Put them on the colour, put them on the colour, put it back. Put 'em all together. Put 'em all together. What do you got? Clean, clean, clear and cool.

Speaker 8 34:51

Life giving water life-giving water.

Speaker 1 35:36

The next song is an intimate reflection on love at first sight. I can't guarantee its veracity on the subject, but all things considered, I think it's a pretty good guesstimate. It's my own personal revelation of why love at first sight sometimes it happens. I've experienced it several times in this lifetime, and it makes as good a sense as any other explanation. See what you think. Yours truly.

Speaker 10 38:37

No matter how you change to my eyes, I know you by this feeling inside time and time and time again. So many lifetimes gone, who here we are, and when you are given steal my heart, I know it's you once again because the time starts as the new love starts the way it always has been.

Speaker 11 39:47

Oh, it's you Yes, it's you can't be able to do it.

Speaker 1 40:39

It's shorter than most songs, and though it includes singing, it also includes a kind of rap style performed by Julia Wade in our Is Anybody Listening concert. Let's just call it a musical moment. The show contains a number of these short rabbleite interludes that helped us transition from one song to another. This particular one entitled Rab Number Four.

Speaker 6 41:47

Change is imperative. Progress is a joke without change.

Speaker 8 41:58

However, change is onerous.

Speaker 13 42:04

Change is awkward. Yeah, change brings a mountain of strife.

Speaker 12 42:18

But life sits at a standstill without change.

Speaker 14 42:24

And thank God change is the law.

Speaker 13 42:47

First we gotta be changing ourselves. That's right.

Speaker 12 42:51

First we gotta be changing ourselves. Before we go changing the world.

Speaker 1 43:23

Harry Belafonte was an amazing talent, groundbreaking artist, and total gentleman. My agent at the time got me an interview and a chance to pitch a song of mine to him when he was producing his movie The Beat Street, a 1984 American dance drama film, featuring the New York City hip hop culture of the early 1980s. The movie became a cult classic. I had Just produced a song I thought might work in his movie called All Around the World, sung by Jenny Burton. Instead of just meeting him and playing him a record or tape of the song, since Jenny was such a good performer, I thought I would take her along with me and have her sing it to him live with my minus one, the vocal track. We met him alone at Atlantic Records recording studio in New York one afternoon. Two young kids almost, nervous as could be imagined. We talked with him for a few minutes, just getting to know each other, and then he said, Okay, show me the song you got. Having Jenny sing it was definitely the right choice. I watched him very intently, listening mostly with his eyes shut. When we finished the song, he smiled and said, Okay, I'll take that one. Thrilled. I started to pack up and leave. Then he surprised us both, and he said, got another one. Luckily, I came prepared. For the next half hour, we sang, slash, and played him four more songs. Another dance music, a ballad, a show song, and an RB. The best of what I had in my bag. At the end, he said, I'll take them all. That's five, right? I'll have my man call your manager first thing in the morning. We flew home on magical wings. Here, as it turned out, was Harry's favorite. Jenny Burton. It's all right by me.

Speaker 13 46:16

Now don't you go crying to mama when you need a lacer. Think twice about coming my way. When you need some comfort, baby, take your troubles to me and stop all this talk about father. You're never gonna bother me. I've got so much infested, and I'm riding on you. If you think I won't care now, well, babe, that's not the way it will be. So use my shoulder to lean on. Use me any way you please. Use my life and the love in my heart, it will lift you up with me. See, I got nothing to hide. I've got nothing to keep from you. So come on in the feeling beginning You see inside Babe I'm gonna see you So use me when you lose your confidence. Hey, use me when you need a friend when all sins lost and it looks like Use me when your hearts on the lid.

Speaker 1 50:24

Actually, when you think about it, we're all singers. The fact that we exist at all is a miracle of engineering, artistry, and conception. It doesn't matter to me whether or not you believe in God, but you have to admit, we humans have to have started somewhere. Amoebas under the sea never quite made it for me. But periodically, God or whatever comes up with a human who is quite exceptional. Gandhi, Alvarati, Abraham Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Einstein, Maria Callis, Aretha Franklin, and the list goes on. These extra special human creations must be of great pride to their creator. This thought, many decades ago, became the subject of a song on one of my first albums. It's a little out there, but worth adding to this list of intimate laid-back thoughts. Open your minds and enjoy God's point of view on one of his best. Yours truly.

Speaker 10 53:02

He and his brother named Buddha most too. Oh, yes, you and you, and you loved one of my way girls. She's stuck with him right through. I watched as she took care of him. Miss Magdalene, she's one of mine. She and her brother Confucius.

Speaker 4 54:01

And oh, yes, you died.

Speaker 10 54:19

How could that come down? I tried three days to get by. I just came to my senses then it was not the end, and he would not die. He was my son, my reflection. After all, who am I to just stand by and let him die? He's one of mine, and I will not forsake my friendly. I will stay with you all forevermore, time after time. That old devil will come and sound, but you're one of mine, and you do not belong to him. So anyway, he kept working the streets for me. He leapt through time and through space. He swept on down the sand terrace. He healed your disease with his infinite grace. He and that mother Teresa. She healed Baby She Even he's still into his same face. But I'm proud, any father would be. Einstein, way to go, Coincline. Even old Frankenstein, he was a kid of mine. Well, you can't win them all. But there was this one design, and boy worked out so fine. He was the best combine. Yes, and he's one of mine.

Speaker 1 58:52

Let's end with a song that celebrates life. I could tell you that it was written decades ago for a drug company that had invented a product that so they thought would cure Alzheimer's disease. I don't believe the drug ever got on the market, but the story I invented for that company is to this day full of truth and joy. It was intimately about my own mother. And so it has always stuck with me and touched all the right chords of remembrance. The song never was about drugs, it was always about the joys of life and my memories of mom. Jenny Burton making every moment count.

Speaker 13 1:00:04

Dear baby brother, funny I still call you back now, but being here and caring for mama, like she wants cared for us. Takes me back. So dear baby brother, it's easier now with this new lease online. It's like a special gift, like a little more time for mama. Couldn't believe all the time she remembered once again Way back when What are these moments what baby? Will I tell ya? I'll hold these here in my heart for the rest of my life. Mama and me and the unexpected love we share In these times so we'll keep on laughing at the simple things we say, crying in the joy of life Watching as the sun comes of each day. Dancing with the children in the sun Lovin' as a night rose on Living like tomorrow never comes We'll be making every moment We even talked about the first time Papa kissed her on now I never knew she loved him so What a special time this is Each and every moment lives Here among the best of the times of my life So we'll keep on laughing at the simple things we say Crying in the joy of love Watching as the sun comes up each day We'll be making the children so Living Animal So Living like tomorrow comes We'll be making every moment Making every moment Making every moment If each of us could stop and take a look at our life Making every moment What can we do to make one team one dream? Make it every moment help each of us concentrated on the work we do Yeah, me and you So we'll keep on keeping home things we step in the joy of stuff comes up to sleep So there you have it Episode forty-eight Laid Back and Intimate Part two Many thanks go to Julia Wade, Jenny Burton, Jonathan Singletary, Freedom Brumner, and Brian Colasso, and the cast of Is Anybody Listening for lending their terrific voices and dedication to this podcast.

Speaker 1 1:06:23

I am a most fortunate composer to be able to work with such talent credits, all songs, music, and lyrics by Peter Lincoln. 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. And thanks to Watchfire Music 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 great vibes. And lastly, a posthumous thanks to Ludwig von Beethoven for your opening four bars.

Speaker 5 1:07:21

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 forward slash 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.