charity town Single Available now.

What inspired the song? 

In my role as a public figure in philanthropy, I’m sometimes asked to speak for a local community foundation in towns that have fallen upon hard times. The big paper mill or textile plant has left, leaving the community without an economic engine. Local generosity tries to hold things together. You see boarded up stores and thrift shops and social service agencies where there used to be a thriving downtown. And while charity and philanthropy can be powerful drivers of change, they can only do so much when everything else is gone. This song is about the picture and the people left behind when the future has moved on. 

Was there a specific feeling that you were trying to elicit in listeners?

Empathy for the people in these towns who have worked hard all their lives and are now lost. Resilient, refusing to take on the yoke of victimhood, yet in their hearts, scared and lost. 

Do you have an interesting story about the songwriting or recording process?

The first recording we did made the song feel pretty huge - like a Bruce Springsteen/Phil Spector collaboration. Big, powerful piano chords carrying the song throughout. It wasn’t intimate enough for me, and the power of it was at odds with the feelings of powerlessness felt by the characters in the song. So, we saved the vocal and the acoustic guitar and re-did everything else. We were having a lot of trouble identifying the right percussion. So one day, I asked my fourteen year-old daughter Sage, who is a wonderful drummer, to come in my room with a five-gallon bucket and her drumsticks. She heard the first verse of the song and nailed a part. Mark Browne then copied her part on a plastic bucket and a tin pail. We also brought in my friend Soozie Tyrell (of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band fame) to add violin. The violin and the percussion now anchor the song. 

What were the certain stylistic/production choices you made and why?

I wanted the song to feel raw, intimate and real, kind of like the circumstances that have befallen these towns I’m writing about. So it’s acoustic bass, violin, cello, plastic buckets, tin pails, and acoustic guitar, with a little electric guitar with some tremolo to add warmth. 

What are three descriptors/adjectives that best describe the emotion or melody in this song?

Empathetic, realistic, resilient. 

Can you provide further context around the visuals associated with this song, including any artwork or video?

Is there a specific still from the video you’d like to include? The video was shot and produced by Matt Mahurin, who has done all of the photography and a lot of the video for Tom Waits throughout his career. We shot the performance in Matt’s studio in Topanga Canyon, in Los Angeles. It’s a little wooden shack in the mountains. I then shot some footage of abandoned mills and stores in the old mill/factory town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and Matt made a California road trip up into venture County where he captured the mannequins, the dogs, the abandoned buildings and cars, and the paper flying through the afternoon sun. 

Do you have a favorite lyric from this track that you’d like to highlight? Why is that significant to you?

“The future’s got plans and the future isn’t fucking around.” The future has an energy of its own, and without human intervention, the future is ambivalent to the impact it has on human lives. It’s cold. It’s ambitious. It doesn’t have any inherent empathy without us. 

How do you feel that you’ve grown as an artist since your last release?

I have some fans! My fan base is growing! That makes me deeply fulfilled and appreciative! 

What has the song taught you or what do you take away from it? 

Don’t settle for your first recording. 

Anything else noteworthy? Perhaps about the song title? 

“Charity Town,” sadly, isn’t about just one town. It’s about many.