[MUSIC - Devon Press: Moonlight]

Brian Lehrer: You like this take on Moonlight from a WNYC listener? Let's listen to a little bit more. You hear Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata in there? That from Devon Press's Moonlight, reimagining Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata for All Of It's 2025 Public Song Project. No, that's obviously not The Brian Lehrer Show theme song, as we usually go into segments with.

What you've heard is a reimagination of that iconic melody created by WNYC listener Devon Press. His song Moonlight is among the winners of this year's Public Song Project, hosted by our colleague Simon Close, over at All Of It with Alison Stewart. He joins us now, walking all the way across the hall to play more of the winning submissions and to extend an invitation to you to the free Public Song Project concert taking place in Brooklyn tomorrow afternoon. Hey, Simon. Welcome back to The Brian Lehrer Show.

Simon Close: Hey, Brian. Good to be back.

Brian Lehrer: You want to start by introducing us a little more to what we just heard?

Simon Close: Sure. That was Devon Press. He was one of our six winners for the Public Song Project this year. That was a song that was, as you said, based on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. He also threw in a little bit of Bizet's Habanera in there. I think that was towards the end of the song that we heard. If you go earlier, you can hear the melody that he uses, which, also, was about Beethoven's life. He incorporated ideas of anxiety that Beethoven might have had as a composer in his lifetime.

Brian Lehrer: Now, I thought the idea of the Public Song Project was that people were suddenly free to do their own versions, and we could play them on the radio and everything, of things that had newly entered the public domain, they weren't protected by copyright anymore, and that that goes back about 100 years in each case. Beethoven stuff is a lot older than that. Why did that show up in this year's Public Song Project?

Simon Close: Some of the newly entered stuff is definitely a focus of the Public Song Project. You're right, it's about 95 years. Stuff from 1929 entered the public domain this year, and that included Fats Waller's Ain't Misbehavin', of which we got four or five versions, I think, submitted to the project. It's also an embrace of the public domain as an idea. We encourage people to dive in as deep as they want to go, which literally goes from about 1929 till the beginning of history.

Brian Lehrer: Aha. People will know this now for next year's Public Song Project, aren't restricted to whatever the year 95 years ago happens to be in a given year, but from there all the way back to, as you say, the beginning of history.

Simon Close: Yes, exactly right.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Speaking of the public domain, I know you wanted to shout out a beloved musician who passed away just last weekend, who people have asked me many times if I'm related to. You want to talk about Tom Lehrer?

Simon Close: Sure. First, are you related to him?

Brian Lehrer: No.

Simon Close: [laughs] Got it. Tom Lehrer is a beloved musician, as you say. An interesting case when it comes to copyright in the public domain, because as we've been talking about, a lot of stuff in the public domain is much older, 1929 or earlier. Another way that something can enter the public domain is if the creator of the work of art decides to relinquish their copyright, which Tom Lehrer did in 2020, I think, when he was around 92 years old. He basically said, "I don't really have much use for this stuff. You don't need to get my permission or pay me to cover my songs." The words he used, I think, were parody or distortion of his work.

He embraced this idea of, like, "You'll get more out of this work, or more can come from this work, if I just free it up to anybody to iterate on." He asked for nobody to send him money, which was just, I think, a really radical idea in how we think about art and ownership and collective ownership of art and culture.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see. I can't resist.

Simon Close: [laughs]

Brian Lehrer: Live from my iPad, one of the reasons he was a genius.

Simon Close: This is The Elements?

Brian Lehrer: Yes.

[MUSIC - Tom Lehrer: The Elements]

Brian Lehrer: He goes on from there. My answer when people ask me, "Are you related to Tom Lehrer?" is, "I wish I was related to Tom Lehrer," because he is, now, unfortunately, you say he was, such a genius. Why is the public domain such fruitful ground each year when it updates? Why did you decide to hang this project each year on that?

Simon Close: I think it's just this idea that there's this shared culture that we all have access to, and the guardrails come off, so you can now do whatever you want with this stuff. That can be just creating your own song. Something in the song project that we encourage is for people to look into the histories of these songs or consider themes in a song that might resonate as much now as they did when the song was originally written.

We got one submission this year from a performer called Kevin Sun, who's going to be at the concert this weekend, which was a take on a jazz standard that's honestly like pretty orientalist. It's called Chinatown, My Chinatown. All the authors of it, I'm pretty sure, were white. Kevin Sun is a Chinese-American jazz musician, and he said, "This is a song that connects to my culture, but I feel like I can do it in a different way that actually does connect to my culture, and comment on this song and its problems, but also embrace the culture that I'm a part of."

Brian Lehrer: You've got another clip to play for us from another winner of the Public Song Project. Then we'll get to what this concert is going to be tomorrow and how many of these winners are actually going to perform live. You want to introduce us to your next artist, DREAMGLOW?

Simon Close: Yes. DREAMGLOW are a Boston-based experimental vocal group. They're led by Nathan Halbur and Angela Yam, who are both opera singers, but the group encompasses lots of other genres like neo soul. The song that we're going to hear is a musical setting of Shakespeare's Sonnet 43. Again, an older composition, an older poem, but still in the public domain. This is their version of Sonnet 43 in musical form.

[MUSIC - DREAMGLOW: Sonnet 43]

Brian Lehrer: It's so rich. It's really produced. I'll admit to the listeners that I've contributed, just for fun, to your Public Song Project in two previous years, but all I did was take out my horn and play a little riff on a song that entered the public domain. You have people, listeners to the station, making these highly produced, wonderful pieces of music.

Simon Close: Yes, definitely. We get all sorts. One thing I do say when I encourage people to submit to the project is that, obviously, we want to see you put work into this. If that means highly produced tracks, then that's wonderful, if that's what you're good at. If you're not a producer and you just are a person with a guitar and an idea, just record yourself on your phone, and that can be just as powerful as something more complicated. Even among the winners, we have all kinds of sounds. At the concert this weekend, you'll hear that breath as well.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us where this concert is, what time tomorrow, how much is it? Spoiler alert. Free. What can people expect to hear?

Simon Close: It's at the Brooklyn Public Library on the steps of the Brooklyn Public Library, their central branch in Grand Army Plaza. It'll be at 1:00 PM tomorrow, which is Saturday, which also happens to be the same time that the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza is going on. Come by, grab a snack or something at the farmer's market, and then just cross the street and hang out with us on the steps of the library. You'll hear from five of the winners of the Public Song Project. You'll also hear from some people who participated in a project that the Brooklyn Public Library did that's spiritually similar to our song project. Theirs was called Anthem to Us. People wrote original anthems that reflected the United States now as opposed to in the past.

Brian Lehrer: Next year's Public Song Project hasn't been announced yet, but can you explain the rules for submissions so listeners who might be inspired by hearing this, maybe hearing about it for the first time, in about 15 seconds here, Simon, can get ready?

Simon Close: Yes, definitely. There'll be information on our website at wnyc.org/publicsongproject. Take something from the public domain. It can be a poem, it can be a song, it can be a book, whatever. Send us a song version of it and we'll take it from there.

Brian Lehrer: You did that so efficiently. Give me another 10 seconds on what you look for for a winning entry.

Simon Close: Sure. Find a song that means something to you. It could have a personal quality. Maybe it's something your parents sang to you, or it could be historically important. Just pick it apart and find something to say about it.

Brian Lehrer: Bringing back in the winning entry that we started on, Devon Press's Moonlight from Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. We thank All Of It producer Simon Close on this year's Public Song Project. Again, Simon's hosting a concert tomorrow afternoon from 1:00 to 2:15 PM at Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library. That's the one at Grand Army Plaza. Thanks a lot. I hope it goes great.

Simon Close: Thanks, Brian.

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