Can Even I Write a Song?

By David Roth

gregory r. todd / creative commons license

Welcome, fellow stumblers!  I believe one of the great beauties of songwriting is you can begin at any age.  I also believe a lot of musical background isn’t necessary as long as you have an idea, a point of view, something to say that you feel passionate about, an interest in being creative, a sense of adventure, and are open to resisting the naysayers. In the song samples below you’ll see two different kinds of pieces.

And imagine what you can do with an idea?! Add a melody—I can help—and you’ve got a song.

Rocket Science

An autumn 2007 invitation to speak—and sing—at NASA’s Goddard Space Center’s “Exploring Leadership Colloquium” in Greenbelt, Maryland launched this song, which also went up on the Space Shuttle “Atlantis” mission to repair the Hubble Telescope in 2009. Really out of this world!  
When I was telephoned by Gail Williams at NASA about a year ahead of time, I said, “Maybe I’ll write a new song for the occasion...” and she was over the moon, so to speak, at the idea.  About two weeks prior to the presentation, she called to check in. “David, we’re so excited about your visit and can’t wait to hear the new song! How did it come out?”  Long pause.  I’d forgotten I made the offer. I said, “Really great, Gail. I gotta go now...”
I got off the phone and got busy.  Turns out October was the 50th anniversary of the launching of Sputnik by the Russians, so I did some research about the Space Race, and off I went.  The thing that jumped out at me in this research was all the fear Sputnik engendered in the West from a tiny “beep beep” from outer space. What a frenzy it caused n the “free” world.  President Eisenhower created NASA so our allies and the U.S. could mobilize a response to this “threat.” A domino was tipped that led to decades of others falling in a high-stakes game of “international one-upmanship.”  For me it all came back to one common denominator. Here’s what I came up with.

It’s fifty years since Sputnik, when the Russians shocked the world
With an orb and two antennae Earth would never be the same
Fueling our worst fears that we’d be vulnerable and weak
If we did not respond in kind, we’d lose the game

So we got our act together, and Explorer One went flying
But not before the Russians sent a dog up into space
If I said I knew why they thought dogs should fly, I’d be lying
They were caught up in some kind of human’s race

A race to the furthest star
A race to the galaxies above
If a little bit of fear could go so far
Imagine what a world could do with love

Gagarin took a spin around the globe in ‘61 and
He was followed ten months later by an astronaut named Glenn
Alexei took a spacewalk, Captain Kirk took our TV
And I’ve never been the same since then

In a race to the furthest star
A race to the galaxies above
If a little bit of dreaming goes so far
Imagine what a world could do with love

Imagine human footprints on a distant lunar plane
Imagine floating science labs where gravity is gone
Imagine the potential that our species could contain
If we were drawn...to love again

I heard a scientist declare the world as we know it
Is destined to be swallowed up in some gigantic hole
And nothing that we do on earth will outlast or survive this
Is there any point in trying to take control?

Just another baby boomer, writing poems
Putting flowers into rifles, hugging trees and singing songs
And the questions in the air aren’t rocket science:
What’s the point and where on Earth do we belong?

In our race to the furthest star
A race to the galaxies above
If a little bit of vision goes so so far
Imagine what a world could do with love

© 2007 David Roth

Before I Die

This song came out of a songwriting exercise where each writer made a list of things we wanted to do while still alive.  We had five minutes to make that list (it always changes) and ten minutes to write the song.  There simply wasn’t time not to do it.  We sat in amazement as one by one, we heard instant musical improvisations—from the simplest of melodies to more elaborate explorations, all made up on the spot—that reflected our various dreams and desires.  We were collectively reminded that the deeply personal is also universal.

© 1991 David Roth

David Roth will be leading a workshop February 19-22. Click for details.

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