[music]

Alison Stewart: This hour, we are excited to finally share the songs we received for the All Of It Public Song Project. If you're new to the project we launched in January, here's the skinny, we invited anyone to send in their own recording based on a work in the public domain that includes music, books, movies, poetry, and a whole lot more. Basically anything, as long as it wasn't protected by copyright and you all delivered. We received more than 80 original recordings, including straight-ahead covers and radical reimaginings with new lyrics and new arrangements. There were mashups, poems set to music, songs inspired by movie plots and so much more. At the beginning of the project, we promised three submitters would get to be interviewed and have their songs played on the air. In this segment, we'll be speaking to those three talented creators and you'll get to hear their songs. Then later in the hour, we'll take a tour through other highlights of the Public Songbook and hear from some judges who reviewed them. To start us off, I want to welcome our first Public Song creator, Kat Lewis. Kat's submission was a re-imagining of the song, I Scream You Scream We All Scream For Ice Cream, which entered the public domain this year. Kat Lewis, welcome to All Of It, and congratulations.

Kat Lewis: Thank you, Alison.

Alison: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your relationship with music.

Kat: Well, I've been playing music since I was a kid. I grew up in a musical family, and that's what I love to do, sing songs and play music.

Alison: Once you heard about the project, you decided to cover the song, I Scream You Scream We All Scream For Ice Cream. Tell me a little bit about that song and why you gravitated toward it.

Kat: Well, when I heard you mention it on the show, it immediately caught my attention. It's just a song that we all know and love, but we only know the hook. I looked at the list of songs that you had put together and I just kept coming back to I Scream You Scream because it's so catchy, but I hadn't heard the whole song, so I listened to the whole original song and it needed some new lyrics. It was time for an updated version.

Alison: Yes, let's just say the lyrics are needing of an update. I think you put it well, [laughs]. In your piece, there's a lot of environmental sound and the recordings in your production, we hear kids' voices and animal noises. Two of our judges actually said they really were drawn to that. Love the background noises and the street tone is how someone put it. What are some of the track sounds we're going to hear on this track?

Kat: There are some ice cream trucks. Where I used to live, there would be two ice cream trucks that parked on the same block and played their songs and it was kind of a chaotic, trippy experience to hear their songs. There's a little of that. Then there's a fire hydrant that was open during the summer where kids of all ages would play and keep cool. When a car drives by an open hydrant, it makes a particular sound. I included that as a sound of summer.

Alison: Anything else you'd like to add before we play your song?

Kat: Well, ice cream trucks, are really difficult to operate and maintain and so I think it's a good time to celebrate these heroes of Summer.

Alison: Kat Lewis is one of our winners for the Public Song Project. Kat, thank you so much for working on this sending in a song, and joining us today.

Kat: Thank you, Alison.

Alison: Here's I Scream You Scream We All Scream For Ice Cream performed by Kat Lewis.

[music]

In the land of summer fun

Playing in the hot, hot sun

There's one sound that we all love to hear

Uptown, midtown, downtown Jean

They make a lovely sound

When they play your favorite song

Tra la la

Tri tri

They're taco taco push pops, ball chip, witch

Drumstick, firecracker, ice cream sandwich, cherry dip.

When we hear it in a flash

We run home and grab some cash

This is what we all run out and holler

I scream you scream, we all scream

for ice cream

Starting Monday, we all scream for Sunday.

Mula Mula [unintelligible 00:04:27]

They got [unintelligible 00:04:30]

Mula Mula

I scream you scream, we all scream

For ice cream

Alison: That was a new version of the 1927 Tune I Scream You Scream We All Scream For Ice Cream performed by Kat Lewis, one of the winners of our Public Song Project. Next up, we have our next winner, Alice Lee, and her cover of The Prisoner's Song first published around 1924. Alice, welcome and congratulations.

Alice Lee: Thank you so much, Alison.

Alison: Tell us a little bit about yourself and your relationship with music.

Alice: I started out as a singer-songwriter in the New York scene about 20 years ago, actually. I was playing a lot of gigs then. Then I took a break and I was in Guatemala for about 10 years. Over there I was performing a lot of live music more interpretations than originals. Then I moved back here about five years ago, and here I am.

Alison: What motivated you to take part in the Public Song Project?

Alice: I'm a regular listener to WNYC, so when I'm home, I have it on in the background. I'm always listening to the shows and when the announcement came out, I heard it and it piqued my interest.

Alison: What song did you choose and why?

Alice: I chose The Prisoner's Song by Vernon Dalhart. That was interesting to me because I didn't really know it that well. When I had a listen, it did seem familiar to me. It was the first country song to sell more than a million records, which surprised me. I did a little research and has been covered by the likes of Johnny Cash, Bill Monroe, and Louis Armstrong.

Alison: Now the song uses banjo, but also a very modern-sounding production. What inspired the soundscape?

Alice: It was very much like a kitchen sink, spaghetti effect. I had a couple of recordings I took on my phone. One was of a weird noise in the York Street subway. Another was of Church Bells on 9th Street in Brooklyn. Then I borrowed a banjo from the Central Library in Brooklyn. I did an arpeggiated figure and a couple of harmonies. I was very inspired by James Blake, so I did that as the direction, and then the banjo and the vocal harmonies kind of go throughout. It's the core of the track. Then I threw it into garage band and just tried, auditioned a bunch of different loops over it. Just went with what sounded good. I did a lot of editing as well on those tracks so that I didn't use them as is, but I wound up manipulating a lot of those as well.

Alison: Is there anything else you would like listeners to know about the piece before we play it? Any part of it you particularly want people to pay attention to?

Alice: I felt like it spoke to these times. I think the reason why I really chose that song as well is because I was singing it from a woman's point of view. A hundred years later and you hear of things happening today where women might be imprisoned for nothing, for being a woman. What happened to Mahsa Amini in Iran spoke to me. I just kind of extrapolated what would happen if it was a woman in the present times.

Alison: Alice Lee is one of our winners for the Public Song Project. Alice, thank you so much for joining us and for sending in a song and taking so much time, and bringing so much of New York into your song.

Alice: Thank you so much, Allison.

Alison: Here's The Prisoner's Song performed by Alice Lee.

[music]

I wish I had someone to love me

Someone to call me their own

I wish I had someone to live with

I'm tired of living alone

So meet me tonight love will meet me

Meet me out in the moonlight alone

For I have a sad story to tell you

Must be told in the moonlight alone

I have a great ship on the ocean

All mountain, and silver, and gold

And my little darling would suffer That ship would be anchored and sold

[music]

I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow

Leaving my poor sweetheart alone

With these cold prison bars all around me

And my head on a pillow of stone

If I had wings as an angel

Over these prison walls, I would fly

I would fly to the arms of my darling

And there I'd be willing to die

Alison: That was a new version of the 1924 tune, The Prisoner's Song performed by Alice Lee recorded and submitted for the Public Song Project. We have two more performers to talk about their submission. For their song sisters Chloe and Lily Holgate created a musical setting for the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem, Afternoon on a Hill, Chloe, and Lily welcome and congratulations.

Chloe Holgate: Thank you.

Lily Holgate: Thank you so much.

Alison: Chloe, tell me a little bit about your musical partnership with your sister.

Chloe: We've been singing together our whole lives. We also played violin and piano together growing up, but the pandemic gave us this amazing fresh start to really devote a lot of time which we had to finally collaborate musically and finding our voice compositionally, which we had never done before. We started just making arrangements of things and then we use poetry as a sort of jumping-off point to write music.

Alison: Lily, what works about the partnership with your sister?

Lily: I guess since we have the same background and we've been collaborating in some form since we were little kids, we understand each other musically, we have similar aesthetics. I think we're able to really have fun together granted, they're always the challenges because we're sisters, we're very close, we're very sensitive to each other's moods, but for the most part, I think we have a great time and we're able to align our aesthetics and make music that we both really like.

Alison: Chloe, what led you to the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, and this specific poem Afternoon on a Hill to turn into a song?

Chloe: We have always loved Millay's poetry, we visited her house. This specific poem, I've known for many years, I've sung other settings of it, but it's very simple yet the imagery it evokes is really powerful. It's almost an affirmation that you can say to yourself in the winter months, it's like the speaker is saying something beautiful that they will do in the future. It's very transportive which just brought up so much musical harmonic imagery to us. It lends itself really well to being set to music and to adding background vocals that hopefully will take you to a meditative space of imagining that you're one with nature.

Alison: Lily, one of the judges described your song this way, haunting vocals, dreamlike and captivating. How did you land on your soundscape?

Lily: Oh, that's such a nice thing to hear that they said. think, for me, I was envisioning, one of the lines in the song is, watch the wind bow down the grass and the grass rise. That sort of undulating just grass going up and down and catching the light, I wanted to create something that sort of had a rocking feel. I just came up with a chord progression and plucked it out on my violin. I wanted it to just ebb and flow and feel really warm as well, like you're baking in the sun.

Alison: Chloe, anything else you want our listeners to know about before we play it?

Chloe: We go by Sibyl Music, which is spelled S-I-B-Y-L. To find us online and hopefully follow more poem settings because this is hopefully going to lead us to an album of more female poets set to music.

Alison: Chloe Emily Holgate perform as Sibyl, their song Afternoon on a Hill was one of our judge's top picks for the Public Song Project. Thank you so much for doing this and for being with you. Let's take a listen.

Lily: Thank you.

[music]

I will be the gladdest thing

Under the sun

I will touch a hundred flowers

And not pick one

I will look, I will look at cliffs and clouds

With quiet eyes

Watch the wind bow down the grass

And the grass rise

Grass rise

The grass rise

And when lights begin to show

Up from the town

I will mark which must be mine

And then start down

Alison: That was Afternoon on a Hill based on the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem of the same name performed by Chloe and Lily Holgate, who perform as Sibyl for the Public Song Project. Stick around and you'll hear more highlights from the 80-plus songs you receive, plus our judges Lincoln Center Chief Artistic Officer, Shanta Thake, New Standards host Paul Cavalcante and DJ Rekha. We'll talk about how they help pick these winners. This is All Of It.

[music]

If you like the ukulele lady like a you

Alison: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, and you're listening to Ukelele Lady, Rhapsody, one of the more than 80 songs you received for the Public Song Project. This one was sent in by submitter Crew G. It's an unlikely mashup of Rachmaninoff samples and lyrics from the 1925 song Ukulele Lady. Both pieces of music to our best knowledge are in the public domain, like all the source material for the many creative submissions we received over the last couple of months. You can listen to them all right now by going to wnyc.org/publicsongproject, where we put up a playlist with the full versions of all the songs that is wnyc.org/publicsongproject.

Now there was a wide range of submissions. Some Public Song players took a straightforward basic cover approach. A few even performed just acapella, like Elsa O'Reilly, who sang, After You've Gone.

[music]

Don't say that we must part

Don't break my aching heart

You know I love you truly for

Alison: On the other hand, there were plenty of lush and layered pieces like Can't Help Loving that Man performed by Ashleigh Prather and Manish Ayachit.

[music]

Alison: There was everything in between like these two guitar pieces first a musical setting of the William Carlos Williams poem Piece on Earth. This is by Catsy.

[music]

Alison: Then Mal Petty's version of the folk song Wayfaring Stranger.

[muic]

Alison: We sifted through all the songs with the help of our judging panel which included some in-house assistance from John Schaefer and Caryn Havlik of New Sounds as well as New Standards host, Paul Cavalconte. We'll be hearing some more songs in a bit but right now I'd like to bring Paul in to talk about his experience with the project. Paul, thanks for making time.

Paul Cavalconte: Thank you for having me. New Standards is on WNYC 8:00-11:00 PM on Saturday evenings. One of our tag lines is a century of great songs and then some. When I heard about this project, I thought this is really up my alley, especially because the show was anchored in the American Songbook era, which is the great Broadway tunes is bookended by Tin Pan Alley to the Brill Building, right? Then there's all this other music that has come since then, like singer-songwriter that is built the same way. Then looking back there are older songs that are ripe for rediscovery, especially these that have now come into the public domain.

The song that really caught my ear was the song which is a folk song called Erie Canal, which is done by a couple of artists Karen Whitman and Rick Pantell. What I liked about it is that first of all, they were using found art in making it because they actually got a section of rail for an old railroad for the clang. They've got other percussive sounds, actually an ink disc on top of a jobbing press that they rotated in made into a percussion instrument. That aspect of it is cool as is the way they produced it.

It reminds me of one of the great revival records of another time, Big Bad John by Jimmy Dean. It's got this space and it's got an environment that invites you in sonically. It's a tomb that I remember from singing in public school in the Bronx. They used to have an assembly and teach us these old songs, they'd pass out mimeograph sheets, they smelled great by the way, and we would sing along and so I found myself singing along with this.

Alison: Well, let's listen to a bit of the Erie Canal by Karen Whitman and Rick Pantell.

[music]

Alison: Paul, you will be giving some of these Public Songs a spin on new standards sometime soon. When and what should listeners keep an ear out for?

Paul: Well, I'm going to mix them in. Again, the show is 8:00-11:00 PM on WNYC Saturday evenings, it's also simulcast. We have a 24/7 streaming station, newstandards.org that just plays this music all the time. It's going to stand out a little bit because admittedly, there are no Ella Fitzgerald or Frank Sinatra, or Nat King Cole versions of a song like Erie Canal. As I said, we do encroach into the territory of Hootenanny folk music that became singer-songwriter, modern Broadway. It's a broad mix. Here and there, I want to give these things some airtime to show that people are thinking creatively about reframing the songbook. It really is a century of songs and then some and now some free ones going back from 1927 before, right, so it's a good deal.

Alison: Paul, thanks for your help with the project.

Paul: Thank you.

Alison: A lot of submissions reimagine their source material writing new lyrics or new arrangements for many different reasons. Here's a creative one from Victor V. Gurbo of Irving Berlin's, A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody.

[music]

Alison: Some players drew inspiration from personal experiences and current events for their new versions. Musician Rachael Ritt said she remembered being displaced after Hurricane Sandy when she recorded her cover of Bessie Smith, Backwater Blues. Diane Perry told us her moving version of Ol' Man River was inspired by a tragic photo from the US-Mexico border along the Rio Grande. Here's a bit of it

[music]

Alison: It was also interesting to see how many public domain works popped up more than once. For instance, we receive three versions of The Best Things in Life are Free and four different versions of Puttin' on the Ritz. We got two major rewrites of the song I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Scream. We heard Kat Lewis's in the last segment. Here's some of Jordan Cooper's rendition titled We All Scream.

[music]

Alison: On top of the songs that appeared more than once, we somehow also had two separate ukulele groups send in songs so kudos to both the NYC Uke Squad and the Chatham United Methodist Church Ukulele Orchestra. Our Public Song player is sent in two submissions based on the poetry of [inaudible 00:26:32] and two based on Edna St. Vincent Millay. There was a lot more poetry and book-inspired work where that came from. Here's Todd Henkin's song based on the Langston Hughes poem, The Weary Blues.

[music]

Alison: Among our judges favorite poetry adaptations was one based on the poem Young Witches by Marian Tannhauser. Massa Gibson wrote and sent in a musical setting for it using a pandemic project collection of glass bottles.

[music]

Alison: That song was highlighted as a favor by one of our judges Lincoln Center chief artistic officer, Shanta Thake, who happens to be on zoom right now. Shanta, thank you for being with us.

Shanta Thake: Thanks for having me.

Alison: Given how busy you are, what made you say yes to helping us out with this Public Song Project?

Shanta: I loved this project. It's always so incredible to be inspired by songs and creators from over 100 years ago. The idea that these stories have something to teach us now. That these poems and fragments of what was some part of culture-making at the time actually can be brought into today's context, so seamlessly in many cases.

Alison: What surprised you in what you heard?

Shanta: What I loved was how many amateur creators and people that really dug through. We think of it as the crate diggers of the DJ set. We're really finding these poems and thinking about what was the best setting, including the one we just heard, where it's this beautiful, simple poem about witches, about a spell being cast, and to set that to music, but then just set it within this framework of a glass bottle collection. Just to put all of those pieces together, and basically, somebody who I would think of as an artist, and citizen, who actually doesn't consider themselves to be a professional musician in any context. I think really, in this case, did such a beautiful job of pulling all of these things together.

Alison: Shanta you gave high marks to a track from Shahab Zargari called Sonification Pontification was remixed based on NASA recordings and the sound of a jet trip. You wrote, "I just love this use of unexpected sounds to create this new palette. Somehow this feels like it collapses time." What inspired that reaction?

Shanta: Well, first of all, when you hear this clip, you hear these throwback sounds to what I assume some of the first airplane travel. It has this very nostalgic feel to it. Then it has all of these beats added and then the sound of what I'm being told is the sound of a black hole, which I've never spent that much time with. This idea of taking these nostalgic sounds and voices and then putting it in the context of us right now. exploring space and where we are now versus where we are then when this recording was made, and it really does feel like we're exploring this together. You're side by side with these folks on this plane journey. I just love that about it.

Alison: Shanta Thake is the chief artistic officer at Lincoln Center. Thank you so much for taking the time to be part of this.

Shanta: Yes, absolutely. Thank you.

Alison: Let's hear a little bit of Sonification Pontification.

[music]

Speaker: Ladies and gentlemen the cabin altitude in the Boeing 720 is controlled for your comfort. However, the thin air at the high altitudes of which this plane flies requires that you breathe supplemental oxygen in the unlikely event that the cabin altitude is lost.

[music]

Alison: There were a few Public Song Project submissions like that one that didn't use vocals instead, some creators use samples and recorded instrumentals. From that latter group, we got one very jazzy rendition of Irving Berlin's Blue Skies it was sent in by Jarrett Walser, here's a bit of it.

[music]

Alison: We had so many great judges help us out. Charlie Harding, Nate Sloan, Lara Downes, Jennifer Jenkins, Cory Doctorow, and Marika Hughes. We're going to hear from one more as we wrap up the segment. DJ Rekha is a New York-based musician and founder of the beloved series, Basement Bhangra, and they were a Public Song judge and a guest on the show Once Upon a Time. Hi, Rekha.

DJ Rekha: Hi, how are you?

Alison: I'm great. Why did you want to join the Public Song Project?

DJ Rekha: Oh, I love judging things. I'm just kidding. I was excited to hear what people would do. Pardon my voice. It's a little hoarse. I always love to see what people are doing. That's as Shanta said, I'm an eternal crate digger. Give me a pile of things unknown and I want to hear what people have done with it.

Alison: What struck you about the songs you listen to?

DJ Rekha: Some of them as you said were dead on covers. I was gravitated towards things that were reinterpretation. They used multiple sources that I could tell were a little bit crafted but sounded simple. I love the I Scream song that used to open the segment with a lot and Rhapsody too. I don't know, I was just looking for something fun. It's also hard to the songs that we've heard some of the songs in different iterations like when I saw Puttin' on the Ritz I thought of Paco, a funny thing, and even with the I Scream song, I think of Wu-Tang when I think of I Scream. It was all a lot of fun to listen to.

Alison: It's really fun when a song you know it and you know it in one variation, but when somebody creates something entirely different out of it, it's interesting to have that ying-yang of I know the song but this isn't that song I know but I like it.

DJ Rekha: Yes, definitely. That's always interesting to me.

Alison: Now you gave a near-perfect score to the song we're going to go out on. It also happens to be a song that helped kicked off the whole project because it just entered the public domain this year. The Best Things in Life Are Free performed and mixed by Alan & Alida Goffinski. What did you like about this tune?

DJ Rekha: They went in on their theme so hard. It was like an A-plus paper and then some. They cited the Quran, they took the theme of the moon. Again, this is something that is deceptively sounding simple, but it's definitely there's a lot of craft in it. I really appreciated that.

Alison: Let's take a listen. DJ Rekha, thank you so much.

DJ Rekha: Thank you.

[music]

Jack King: Mission sequence starts, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero. All engine running. Liftoff. We have a liftoff. 32 minutes past the hour. Liftoff on Apollo 11.

[music]

The moon belongs to everyone

The best things in life are free

It shines tonight for everyone

Alison: We want to say thank you to all our judges and thank you to everyone who submitted a song for the Public Song Project and thanks to Simon Close worked so hard on this. To hear them all in full go to wnyc.org/publicsongproject. That is wnyc.org/publicsongproject and happy listening.

[00:35:13] [END OF AUDIO]

 

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