Have you ever laughed, cried or sung-along with one of my songs? If so, I’m guessing you’ll like this full length feature video of my new play-concert “Ebenezer’s Make Over”! It’s about a modern-day Ebenezer Scrooge who is visited by three spirits in the night. They shake him awake with passionate and humorous songs written by Holly Near, Geof Morgan, Charlie Murphy, myself and other cultural workers from the feminist men’s and women’s movements. Scrooge learns what will happen to him and the re...
Jul 15, 2025•1 hr 24 min
Here’s an anthem I wrote from one of the Twelve-Step sayings. We sang this on the main stage with the audience at the 1986 Philadelphia Folk Festival, along with my friends Kim and Reggie Harris. Join us! WHEN ONE IS TOO MANY One drink, one smoke, one snort of coke A-D A sugar slip, hey, a mainline trip A-E-E7 Are you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? A-D My friend, I know you know what’s required! A-E-E7 Cho: When one is too many, and a thousand ain’t enough, A-D You cannot do any, hey,...
Mar 28, 2025•5 min
WHEN JESUS WAS A KID It’s Christmas time again D And the mall is really weird. Everyone gets stressed out Christmas shopping every year. D-A7 I have to stop and wonder, Looking at my Christmas list When Jesus was a kid, Would He be doing this? A7-D I know He was a baby, But did He ever cry? Did Jesus wet His diapers, Or were they always dry? Did He use a bottle Before He used a cup? Did Jesus throw things on the floor For Mary to pick up? Did Mary ever spank him? G Ahh, does the Bible say? D Did...
Dec 19, 2024•5 min
When my buddy Utah Phillips recorded my song, ‘It’s Only A Wee-Wee, So What’s The Big Deal?’, he introduced it by saying, “Now here’s my idea of a kids’ song folks! Full bore, overhead cam, spoke wire-wheels, no holds barred damn kids’ song! None of that ‘knicky-knacky-nu’ stuff we were stuck with when we were kids. When’s the last time you actually said ‘wee-wee’ in public? ‘It’s only a wee-wee, so what’s the big deal? It’s only a wee-wee so what’s all the fuss? It’s only a wee-wee and everyone...
Dec 15, 2024•4 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is YECCH! from my “Wha'D'Ya Wanna Do?" album. I play this song at almost every family concert because almost veryone loves screaming "Yecch!" at the top of their lungs! It's a 'scream-along' so you can join in with us! It's full of make-believe and playfulness, and it's an example of how story and oral tradition grab our attention and engage us. There is an air of danger when we face unknown monsters. When adults laugh with kids at "yecchy" stuff, kids recognize a kindred ...
Sep 29, 2023•6 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is LET'S FACE IT! from my “In The Hospital" album. It addresses facial disfigurement, and all the unsettling emotions that we go through when we feel that we're different than others around us. It's difficult emotionally, whether we're an adult or a child, to figure out how we're going to behave when others stare at us and feel uncomfortable. We have to cope with our own feelings of being left out and rejected. Maintaining a healthy, positive self-image is a lifelong proce...
Sep 22, 2023•8 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is INSPECTION. I wrote it with Penny Pefley, one of the pediatric nurses who helped us make our “In The Hospital"album. My buddy Bill Harley and I 'rap' this one. Our personal privacy is challenged regularly in a hospital by doctors, nurses and assistants who want to make sure we're okay. They even wake us up at night to make sure we're sleeping soundly! Today's kids are taught that it's their body and they can say "No!", but this all changes in the hospital. We can feel t...
Sep 15, 2023•7 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is JUICE, from my “Stayin Over" album. It's an uncomplicated song, about the complicated concepts of 'love' and 'energy'. When we feel we’re not loved, we feel empty, and we search for any kind of 'juice' to fill us up, like booze, sex, drugs, money, food or approval from others. But when we’re actually filled up with 'love', we don't have to go on that search. We can pass on that love and energy we have to others. We learn to love others from being loved. Children act mor...
Sep 08, 2023•7 min
Today we'll 'Chew' on the title song from my STAYIN' OVER album. Do you remember the first night you went to 'stay over' at a friend's house? Maybe it was a camping trip with other families. These adventures are loaded with memories and lessons we learned from our social interactions with others. It's a big step in independence for most kids. When we do it, we face separation from our own bed, blanket, our teddy bear, and from our parents. Some kids are nervous about wetting our bed, or getting ...
Sep 01, 2023•8 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is WIGGLE. It's a song about freedom! We all “wiggle” when someone won’t let us do what we want to do. 'Being alive!" means that in one form or another, we just need to "wiggle"! Some of us wiggle emotionally because we don't want to be 'pinned down'. Some wiggle physically because we'll jump out of our skin if we can't get down and run around and chase the kitty cat! And some of us do "ethical wiggling". Politicians do it; business people, religious people too! Legislatur...
Aug 25, 2023•7 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is THE PRIZE from my “Did You Walk?" album. It's song lyrics without any music, so actually, it's a poem. We're constantly being taught that it's important to 'come in first', to 'win the game', to 'win the race!' Some of us do it to get approval from others. Some think we have to do it so we can become financially independent and better able to care for ourselves and our loved ones. To have a kinder, more sustainable way of surviving on earth, we need to learn how to be i...
Aug 18, 2023•5 min
Today's 'Song To Chew', SANDWICHES, was written by Bob King. One of the subjects that kids love to sing about is food!! We'll 'chew on' ideas about kids and food and the interconnectedness of all the human things we do in our lives. There's 'enjoyment' and 'sharing'. There's 'mooching', which is trying to get something that someone else has, but not wanting to 'share' what we have. 'Mooching' is like a 'one way street' where everything on the road is coming in our direction, and real 'sharing' i...
Aug 11, 2023•8 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is NEEDLE-EE NOODLE-EE. I wrote it with Penny Pefley, one of the two pediatric nurses who initiated our "In The Hospital" album! "Pokes" or "shots" are probably the number one fear children have about being in the hospital. Few children escape this experience, whether as an injection, an IV start, or a blood test. It may be impossible for a child to understand why they're being hurt when we're supposed to be making them better, but it's important for them to know that they...
Aug 04, 2023•9 min
Our Song To Chew today is MY DAD'S A JUNGLE GYM from my “Uh-Oh!" album. I used to carry my daughters around on my shoulders, or under my arms when they were little. Sometimes they'd get tired on a walk, and I'd carry them on my back. Eventually they'd wiggle free, hop down and run around again. Dads are generally less 'risk-adverse' than Moms, which means that we let our kids take more risks than Moms do. I'd let them stand on the roof of my van and hold out my arms and say, "Okay! Jump!", ... a...
Jul 28, 2023•7 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is MY BODY RUNS, from my “Did You Walk?" album. I wrote this song at the request of two women who were marketing their Digi-Walker Pedometer, a small device for one's belt or pocket that counts the steps we take to be sure we get enough exercise every day. Kids have lots of questions about their own bodies and how they seem to work sort of automatically. "My body runs, my body goes! I don’t know how, but my body knows!" We really don't have much control over making our hea...
Jul 21, 2023•8 min
Today's 'Song To Chew', WHA'D'YA WANNA DO?, is about 'wanting to have fun with a buddy'. As I listen to the lyrics more than 40 years after I wrote them, they're about being joyous. That's mostly what kids wanna do, 'find support as we go through our lives joyously'. Support makes it less scary to take risks, so when we take a risk, even if it doesn't work out, we learn that we can overcome obstacles and eventually become stronger and more confident. This song isn't as philosophically 'deep' as ...
Jul 14, 2023•8 min
This week's 'Song To Chew' is THAT'S MY THANG! We get a "fire in our belly" about something that involves all our attention, often to the exclusion of everything else around us. Our 'thang' is something we want to achieve, or simply a task we want to complete. Our 'thang' isn't really 'work' because we enjoy doing it. Many of us love the work we do. Artists often work for little or no money because it's an expression of ourselves. It feels good to do our "thang" and if we can get paid for it, th...
Jul 07, 2023•8 min
Today we'll "chew on" the song, COVERS ON OUR HEARTS from our musical play "Pie In The Sky". It takes place in a small town with a big nuclear reactor. The kids in town want to get rid of it because there are so many health problems, but the grown-ups are slow to respond. It's based on the Pied Piper fable, about a magical piper who's hired to rid the town of rats. He leads them all out of town by playing his magical flute, (in my case, a drum!). But when the townspeople refuse to pay him, he le...
Jun 30, 2023•14 min
Our 'Song To Chew' today is WHILE I'M SLEEPING, written with Diane Gates. She and Penny Pefley are pediatric nurses from Seattle Children's Hospital who encouraged me to write and record our 'In The Hospital' album. I got my buddy Bill Harley to join us, and we won Parent's Choice 'Best Album'! This song addresses difficulties we face with going to sleep, particularly when we're in a hospital. We have fears about not being conscious or in control when we're asleep, and our strange surroundings a...
Jun 23, 2023•8 min
Our 'Song To Chew' today is UNDER THE RAINBOW. Some might call it a 'woke' song, because it's full of hope. There are some very mystifying things in this world. I haven't got a clue about how they happen, so I don't rule out prayer, magic, supernatural religions, being "woke" or anything else that might help us all survive together! I know that 'when someone holds a belief, we can't get them to change that belief by offering facts.' Science and logic don't have much influence in the 'Land of Bel...
Jun 16, 2023•7 min
Today's 'Song To Chew' is NEVER SPEAK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL! It seems like a 'fun little song', but it opens doors to deeper topics like, 'Where do our rules come from?' and 'How do they become laws?' Kids deal with 'grown-up rules' all the time. We teach children rules, so they'll learn to be socially responsible adults; people who care about other people. Adults who sing this song with their kids send the message, “We can play and be silly, and still be caring and polite to each other at the sa...
Jun 09, 2023•9 min
Our 'Song To Chew' today is I'M A LITTLE COOKIE, written by Larry Penn. It reframes the concept of 'having a disability' for kids and grown-ups. When a traumatic event happens, and something in us changes or 'breaks', we can feel like we're 'un-whole'! It's true that as we change and grow and learn, difficult things do happen to us, but we're still fully human no matter what! We may be 'different', but when changes happen, we adjust, and work to rebalance ourselves. No matter what color or flavo...
Jun 02, 2023•7 min
Our SONG TO CHEW this week is PEACEFUL FEET, from my 'Grow It At Home' album. I wrote it as part of a challenge sent out from Rounder Kids Records asking some of the best artists in children's and family music to create a one-minute song for an album called "HEAR AND GONE IN 60 SECONDS" It included my friends Bill Harley, Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer, Justin Roberts, Kim and Reggie Harris, Tom Paxton, Beethoven's Wig, Dan Crow, Dave Kinnoin, Parachute Express and Joanie Bartels, just to name a ...
May 26, 2023•4 min
This week's 'Song To Chew' is GNARLY DUDE. 'Gnarly' means 'twisted and knobby', but it's also slang for 'something unpleasant or unattractive', or for the opposite, 'something excellent or very good'. To be a 'gnarly dude', we have to figure out how to be tough and cool at the same time! Sounds challenging! One of the unwritten lessons we learn in school is that we need to study the subject and the teacher in order to get good grades. By the time we go to school, most of us have mastered how to ...
May 19, 2023•8 min
This week's Song To Chew, 'HOME WHERE THE HEART IS', opens the musical stage play I wrote with Ellen Geer, “Pie In The Sky", which ran as part of our 1987 theater season at the Theatricum Botanicum. It takes place in a small American town that has its own nuclear reactor. The kids of the town want to get rid of it because it's creating health problems, but the grown-ups are slow to respond. It's based on the fable of the Pied Piper who rid Hamlin Town of it's plague of rats by playing his magica...
May 12, 2023•8 min
My SAMIT AND THE DRAGON song comes from our “In The Hospital" album, recorded with my buddy Bill Harley and the two pediatric nurses from Seattle Children's Hospital who instigated the whole project, Diane Gates and Penny Pefley. We won the Best Children's Album of the Year Award from the National Assn of Independent Record Distributors in 1983! Doctors and nurses in pediatric hospitals still use it to help kids and families. It was new back then, but today, many traditional medical professional...
May 05, 2023•11 min
Our SONG TO CHEW this week, is STRANGERS, from my 1992 child abuse prevention concert with KidPower and actor John Ritter. Before people turn 18, one out of four of us will have been sexually abused. Our feelings are like an early warning system. If we feel uncomfortable about a situation, we need to listen to that little voice and get to safety! Adult social interactions can be very confusing for kids. 85% per cent of the time, the abuse comes from someone who we know and trust. Less often, it'...
Apr 28, 2023•7 min
Our 'Song To Chew' this week is 'NO, NO, NO!' Little kids like to say 'No!'. We learn that from the adults around us! "Can I have a puppy?" No! "Can my friend come here to play?" No! It's impossible to be a perfect parent. I was spanked as a kid, but I never hit my kids, and they turned our pretty great. With the world situation being what it is these days, I don't want to teach children that it's okay to use violence to 'solve' a problem! ~ My 'Songs To Chew' podcast ~ link in bio, wherever you...
Apr 21, 2023•10 min
Today's 'Song To Chew', "IF YOU LOVE A HIPPOPOTAMUS" was written by Connie Kaldor, a wonderful Canadian singer-songwriter. It brings up the delicate subject of our size and our behavior and our appearance. If we don't look or behave the way other people think we should, we can get excluded, and become overly-critical of ourselves. We beat ourselves up for eating too much or exercising too little or being clumsy, then feel sad or angry about the whole thing, and binge to sooth ourselves. Next, we...
Apr 14, 2023•8 min
WHERE WILL I GO WHEN I'M DEAD AND GONE? is one of my more controversial songs. Why write a song for kids about death and dying? Because it's a subject no one wants to talk about! Curiosity about death is completely human and understandable. Kids need safe people to talk with about it; to ask questions and process some of the huge feelings that come up when we lose someone or something important to us. Death comes to all living things, and can be scary and sad to think about, but rather than get ...
Apr 07, 2023•7 min
