Glen Song

Most songs are inspired by non-musical things like birth, death, joy, or nature. But “Glen Song” was inspired by another song!

It happened during a choir rehearsal of Charlie Smalls’ celebratory number “Brand New Day” from The Wiz. As the choir sang it over and over, I found myself captivated by its high-energy chorus, a repeating sequence of bright major chords as joyful as it is unforgettable.

At some point, I wondered, “What if the sequence didn’t repeat but instead veered off in unexpected directions, careening through the circle of fifths with wild abandon?” I immediately thought of a little poem my friend Sam Bates had recently sent me, a gleeful tribute to life written by his father, Scott.

Bingo! I returned home from that rehearsal knowing exactly how I wanted to set “Glen Song” to music.

About the poet: Alfred Scott Bates (1923–2013) was a poet, activist, and free thinker from Evanston, Illinois. During World War II he served as a French interpreter in the Normandy Invasion and afterward worked in Military Government in Germany. After earning his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he moved to Sewanee, Tennessee, with his wife Phoebe. There he raised four sons, built a house, and for nearly forty years served on the faculty of the University of the South, where he taught French literature and, later, film. His wide-ranging interests included birdwatching, painting, civil rights, brain studies, and quantum physics. His books include “Guillaume Apollinaire,” “The ABC of Radical Ecology,” “The ZYX of Political Sex,” and “Poems of War Resistance.” “Glen Song” is drawn from his poetry collection Songs for the Queen of the Animals.

– Elizabeth Alexander