Roger Bourland
writes about music and life

Wow is all I have to say. Far out. Far out! I never heard this one. Get down guys. Get down. And THEN Get back.

These are highly charged words that mean a wide variety of things to a wide variety of people. I won’t even think about defining this sentence, but I’d rather focus on HOW we say it, or sing it. I can only speak for myself and a handful of other people who have said “I love [...]

Has anyone analyzed David Bowie’s music? This is a fascinating song with a rather complicated structure. I hear a strong John Lennon influence, and specifically “A Day in the Life” (and to a lesser extent “I am the Walrus”) right up to the synthesizer climb at the end. We see all kinds of “space oddities:” [...]

Five months before I graduated from Harvard, Leon Kirchner had set up an interview for me to meet the composer for Sesame Street, Joe Raposo, who had also studied with Leon. Joe was looking for an assistant or someone to help write more music for Sesame Street. I ended up taking a job at UCLA [...]

This is one of my favorite Billy Joel songs. There is an Americana feel to it that is very attractive. I’ve heard some choral arrangements of this song that are bone chilling.

Another great Madeline Kahn performance of that classic patter song, “Getting Married Today” from COMPANY by Stephen Sondheim. I want to write a song like this. I love the physical inner drama with how we follow the amount of breath it takes to get out each line and then get scared that we might not [...]

The evah cweative and tewwific Madeline Kahn is hilawious playing Lili von Schtupp in this scene from Mel Bwooks’ BLAZING SADDLES.

My favorite Danny Elfman song of all time from THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, “This is Halloween” is here sung in German. The influence of Kurt Weill is clearly heard in this terrific song.

Pete singing on BBC’s “Tonight In Person” in 1964. (Ripped by partridge662 from Folk Sounds of the Sixties, BBC4, 2006).

The brilliant Lady Bernice appears here pre-Sweet Honey in the Rocks. Pete Seeger plays the 12-string guitar. The swaying white girl is Jean Ritchie. Pay attention to Bernice’s ever present clapping in “Come and Go with Me to that Land.”. Her sense of a long vocal line is thrilling.