THREE SONGS

Lately at Project Sound I’ve taken on three new songs to record. One is actually very old—my late Uncle John (in the photo above) taught me “Dundabeck” when I was just a wee boy (in the 1950s). We had a tradition in my family when we gathered at my grandparents’ place in Brooklyn, we’d each have to sing a song before we ate our dinner. Uncle John was always good for a rollicking version of “Dundabeck.” The recording can be heard on a free compilation called We’re All Irish released by Riverview Studios in Waltham, MA, under the guidance of Sam Margolis.

Now if you got to see my videos on Gimmesound.com (they are still available for view) you remember that it looked like I moved to Gloucester by walking here on the railroad tracks. For the video I made up a chorus of a song that went, “Clickity clack, clickity clack, the girl left me on the railroad track.” Well, that chorus has turned into a full fledged song. “Clickity Clack” is one of the other songs that I’m working on right now.

Song number three has to do with my interest in Dogtown—an old abandoned settlement in the woods of Cape Ann. I took a poem by Kitty Parsons and patchworked it into a wonderful tune about “Dogtown.” Kitty isn’t with us now, but I had a number of discussions with her about the use of her poem. She’s okay with it as long as I give her some publicity—look for her photo and poem in the May issue of the Noise.