
This is the third in a series of blog entries about the songs on the upcoming album “Hello Cruel World”, to be released January 2012.

They’re in the front seat, he’s got the radio low
And the moon hangs over Idlewild as the planes touch down
He is talking but she’s not listening
She is thinking of her father, who died when she was young
In the mid-1960s my little world and the much larger one around me were both coming apart at the seams. You don’t see the correlation until much later – years later – but it’s there, and from the distance of decades it takes on its own kind of symmetry. From that distance another thing becomes visible: how much things have changed, and how little. Families still fall apart, hate still spawns more hate, the names change but the troubles don’t.
My father was a journalist; his beat was the Civil Rights movement. After John F. Kennedy was assassinated, my father, in a state of grief and anger, locked himself in the basement. As a small child, I found that terrifying. Not long afterwards, the family of Medgar Evers, the slain civil rights leader, came to stay at our home in Pelham, New York, so that his widow Myrlie and my father could work on her memoir. During their visit there was a snowstorm, and their youngest son, Van and I built a snowman together in the front yard. It was the first time Van had ever seen snow. He was momentarily transported beyond his grief by the magic of it.
On our black and white TV in the kitchen, I watched Kennedy riding in the back of a limo – shot, fatally wounded, and falling into his wife’s lap, over and over again. In my front yard I played in the snow with a little boy who saw his father gunned down in his own driveway. The political is personal; the personal is political. We think we’re walking on the moon, but we are dancing in the dark.
We shoot our rockets, we shoot our presidents
We shoot the commies and the niggers and the Viet Cong
Everything changes, everything stays the same
And the moon hangs over Idlewild as the planes touch down
“Idlewild” by Gretchen Peters
© 2010 Circus Girl Music (ASCAP)
from the upcoming album Hello Cruel World
Wow. So moving. How do you sing a song like this and not just completely break down while singing?
You touched my soul again my friend … Am in the car with you … the melody carried the words straight to my heart … am looking forward to hearing it live in a month …. will be brilliant …..Peace
“LOVE IS the only freedom in the world because it so elevates the sprit that the laws of humanity and the phenomena of nature do not alter its course” ~ Kahlil Gibran
love to you Ray
Vivid imagery-storytelling in a song; identity with the generation and the world in which we live and lived in. Powerful, personal stuff. What artistry. ( which is really lacking in today’s music. ) Thank you for sharing your gift of this song. Your tunesmith tapestry is finely woven and rich with color, passion, and dynamic. Your canvas speaks with lines, and shades and shadows. The listener comes away moved. And changed.
I began listening to the song with the specific intent of listening for the lack of rhyme and noteing whether or not I missed it. By the end of the song I had forgotten all about rhyme or melody or any musical aspect whatsoever. By the end of the song I was aware only of words and the images playing in my mind as I listened. I bet that’s exactly what you intended. Moving song.
Love the album! Love this song! I “got” it when I first heard it. Got it more after watching the video. But now after reading this description… well, the song connects on a whole new level. Let us Cali folk know when you’re coming out this way, and don’t skip the The Bay Area! Oh, and you’re right about snow…