Like any major event or political situation, we little folks’ll probably never know exactly how it all went down. But Happy Songs About The War was born out of a sincere desire to shed some light on the difference between why we were told we went to war with Iraq and why we actually did, and to spread the message of non-violent communication to whomever had ears to listen.
Before there was a show, there was an album. All twelve songs from the show itself had been written piecemeal over the last three years: watching in horror and disdain as the war unfolded, and as the violence continued (make that continues) to feed on itself.
One summer afternoon in 2006, I was sitting with the verses and choruses and bridges and guitar solos spread out on the desk in front of me, and realized they all fit together to form a whole. Happy Songs About The War, the album, was born.
I was itching to record it immediately, but I’d already begun recording Contra Mundum, Vol. II, another creative venture of mine, and figured I’d better finish that one first. So, I put it away in The Drawer, where many of my other great ideas go.
It sat there: silent, patient, barely breathing.
That December, after buying a house, moving, and galumphing clumsily through the holidays, I found myself wide awake one night, staring at the ceiling. I got up, turned on the computer, and wrote until dawn. The next morning, I did the exact same thing. And the next, and the next. It became this strange ritual: every night, without exception, my eyes would open. I’d put on my robe, grab the space heater, and shuffle out to the computer in the living room. Luckily, my wife—as well as being drop-dead gorgeous and capable of putting up daily with the likes of me—can sleep through anything. Something was emerging.
Truthfully, I realized at some point after the first several days that I wasn’t writing this damn thing. I was watching it write itself. I don’t recall once sitting there waiting for the next idea. My fingers were busy typing before the synapses relayed the conscious thought.
A week or two later, a one-man show based on the Happy Songs About The War album was complete. Or complete enough, as they say, for government work.
Unlike the music, however, this one never made it to The Drawer.
Immediately I found a guy I’d never met interested in putting together a promo video for the show, almost for free. Leigh Scarritt, theatre maven extraordinaire, read it and offered to direct, and has been nothing short of priceless in the editing process. I met Josh through a mutual acquaintance, and he’s doing an amazing job with the multimedia, as well as the website. We essentially have no budget, but we’re all committed to get ’er done.
A month or two into the process, a friend who makes roughly what I do every week (and that ain’t much) handed me a check for a thousand bucks and said, “Do it.â€
So, I’m doing it.
If you, too, would like to help in any way with this creative endeavor, please contact us.
And fer the love of Pete—whomever Pete is—don’t miss the show. VISIT THE SHOW'S NEW WEBSITE NOW, AT WWW.HAPPYSONGSABOUTTHEWAR.COM!J.D. Boucharde
December 2007
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