Making History - Story Behind the Song
TOPIC: VALENTINE'S DAY: AN UNUSUAL ASSIGNMENT
"Making History"
What I have come to find over the years is that I basically get requests for two kinds of songs: the kind that tug at your heart strings and make you cry, and the kind that are very silly.
Max, an elementary school principal from NYC, called me up--all devious and excited--asking for a song for his bride Eve, for Valentine’s Day. I was raring to go. When we got into the interview, though, I learned that the assignment was more challenging than I might have at first guessed. Max wanted three things:
FUNNY STUFF
Make sure it really captures the wacky, playful, irreverent, essence of us, he says
(Okay, fine, I can do that)
BIG TIME TEARS
But this song also totally has to make her cry
(The wacky song has to make her cry? Hmmmm, how do I --?)
POOP
…AND, it has to incorporate the word “POOP”
(POOP? In a love song?!)
Okay, well, actually, the “poop” was not an out-and-out requirement. Poop was just one of the things, as we were conducting the interview, that Max tossed onto the table. (Metaphorically speaking, I mean. My song interviews are very sanitary affairs, I assure you). So I figured as long as this was going to be the most challenging song in the universe—silly humor abounding AND the need for a real tear-jerker, we might as well crown the whole assignment with poop. (We are talking about dog poop here, if that makes reading the rest of this write-up any more do-able for those of you who are now wavering on the idea of going forward).
THE SONG
The song took a few more re-writes than usual. Humor I can do. Tear-jerking I can do. But Humor-Tear-Jerking?! Oy. However, as is pretty much always the case when I think, “Oh, man…this is the assignment that is going to take me down…” something really new and different emerged. I somehow landed on a way to start silly in each verse and end up sentimental—sentimental not in spite of the silliness, but, in fact, because of it. So, PHEW! I was getting somewhere. Now all I had to do was finesse a little dog compost into the song and I had myself the answer to Max’s prayers.
EVE'S REACTION
Okay, so we pulled it off. Max was able to keep the secret until Valentine’s Day. And, in fact, he did something no one else who has ever commissioned a song with me has ever, ever (EVER) done. He had listened to the “rough cut” of the song “Making History” that I had emailed him (a scratchy recording of me sitting at my desk, plunking away on my little guitar, rather ineptly, if I do say so myself), but, once I got his OK and went into the studio and hired big fancy fabulous musicians, and sent him the final studio recording….he never actually listened to it. At all. Not, that is, until he played it for Eve. That way, he reasoned, they could experience it together for the first time. What a husband! What a cool idea. And, of course, I was thinking, if he ended up hating the studio version, what a weird way to find out. But hey, here’s to trusting, and risk-taking. And togetherness. And here’s to Max!
Eve loved it! It was a total and utter V-day home run. Max wrote to me to tell me the experience was “awesome” and to say,
“She loved it. She’s been listening to it ever since. She told me it was the best gift she ever got.”
I sat back smugly in my easy chair, feeling like Cupid Junior, and savored the knowledge of our success like a seasoned professional would, with a pipe and a smoking jacket.
OK, actually, that is a big fat lie. I have been doing commissioned songs for ten years now, and still, EVERY time the call comes in to tell me that it was a hit, I start squealing like a stuck pig and running all through the house sweating and laughing and then rolling around on the kitchen floor with my feet kicking like eggbeaters up in the air. My family has come to accept this, but when we have guests over for dinner and the “Hey, the song was a hit” phone call comes in, it can get a little weird. What can I tell you? That phone call is one of the ABSOLUTE BEST parts of a really, really, really amazingly fun job.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anna Huckabee Tull is an award-winning Boston Singer-Songwriter with five national CD releases, including the 2007 CD, "Every Day," a collection of songs exploring the relationships between parents and children, young and old. Anna is a Psychologist with a Master's Degree in Spiritual Psychology and Applied Psychology. [More about Anna]. She will be spending her Valentine's Day with a guy who also looks really good while scooping up dog poop. And two little boys who could not be coerced into such an activity for a box of chocolates of any size. The piano tracks you hear on this song are performed and recorded by Larry Luddecke at Straight Up Music in Arlington Mass. I have never actually seen Larry scoop up dog poop, but it is my belief that he would be masterful at it.
LINKS
© 2008 Anna Huckabee Tull. The rights for this song are filed and registered with the United States Copyright Office as a Sound Recording by Anna Huckabee Tull. Copies of these songs may not be sold or bartered. But sharing? Sharing is all good! And downloading for free? Right here right now? Go for it!
