If You're A Pretender, Come Sit By My Fire

Were you a fan of Where The Sidewalk Ends or A Light In The Attic back in your youth? Those two illustrated books of poems were done by the amazing Shel Silverstein, who among many things also wrote well known songs such as "A Boy Named Sue" and "The Cover Of The Rolling Stone". He was all over the map actually, but most know him as a thought-provoking author of children's poetry. Click here for a more detailed and interesting bio of the man.

This project is about taking Shel's words and turning them into melody. Actually at its core, it's purely an artistic exercise, we could have chosen any poet but we chose him because his sense of boundless creativity is what Peppermill is all about.  Involved are artists of many different styles, and it'll be interesting to see the different approaches of turning literature into song.

However, we have run into a bit of a roadblock... the family members in charge of his estate has taken offense to our experiment, and have threatened all the artists involved with lawsuits, if they choose to participate.  Despite the fact that Shel was a frequent and willing collaborator, and allowed others before us to turn his writing into song, his Estate disapproves of what we've done (despite not actually listening to what we've done).

We're confident that they'll see reason eventually, but until then we'll just have to wait.  So if you're curious how this turns out, just check back here and we'll keep you posted.  Anyhow here's the artists that were to take part this, and the poems they had planned to adapt:

Someone Has To Polish The Stars = Jess Hill
Falling Up = Hymns To Werewolves
Needles and Pins = Antenne
Noise Day = Cars and Trains
The Voice = BrandUn DeShay
Different Dances = Patrick Porter
The Bear, The Fire, and The Snow = Candy Claws
People Zoo = Domotic
The Folks Inside = Ceschi Ramos
A Light in the Attic = The Youngest
Colors = One Little Plane
Joey = Rollin Hunt
Rain = Ljudbilden & Piloten
True Story = Buffaloswans
Enter This Deserted House = Lindsay Cuff
The Garden = Hannah Dueck
Poor Angus = Austin Nicolai
If The World Was Crazy = Flowtation Addvice
Forgotten Language = Ker
The Little Blue Engine = Clare Love
My Beard = Shana Cleveland
Smoke Off = John J McCauley III
Tell Me = Spirit Elevating Brains
Where The Sidewalk Ends = The Apologists
Hug O' War = Lotte Kestner
Hungry Mungy = Parlour Steps
Lyin' Larry = The Great Mouse Trap
Monsters I've Met = Ivy Mairi
Listen to the Mustn'ts = Jonathan Alonzo
Hard To Please = Supertalented
Pirate Captain Jim = tUne-YaRdS
Moon-Catchin' Net = Renée Layla
Stone Airplane = Gregory Pepper & His Problems
Weird-Bird = Peppermoon
Polly = The Creaking Planks
The Giving Tree = Paleo
The One Who Stayed = Woodpigeon
Dancin' in the Rain = Bakers At Dawn
A Battle in the Sky = Marissa Nadler
Messy Room - The Sweet Hurt
Lazy Jane = Barbara de Dominicis
The Toy Eater = Kira Kira
Standing = Gratitillium
The Loser = Nick Caceres
The Flying Festoon = Lady Lamb The Beekeeper
Unicorn = Carnival Moon
Human Balloon = Man Meets Bear
It's Dark In Here = Owl Eyes
Here Comes = Liger
The Search = The Abramson Singers
Magic = Melodia
When I Was Your Age = Tarkin
Batty = Liz Isenberg
Body Language = MoZo
Rock'n'Roll Band = The Ascetic Junkies
A Giraffe and a Half = Oo is an Instrument
Bear In There = Tidy Kid
Obedient = Promise and the Monster
Blood-Curdling Story = Kania Tieffer
Why Is It? = Sun Aristocrats
Furniture Bash = Bear in Heaven
Long-Leg Lou and Short-Leg Sue = Thunder Power
Tree House = Bob Mo and Gigi
Jumping rope = Stefana Fratila
Ourchestra= Doom Squad
The Edge of the World = Gareth Dickson
Imagining = Marla Hansen
Day After Halloween = birdsacrosswater
My Robot = Bike
Hypnotized = The Wind Whistles
Dreadful = The Heard
Help! = Dark Bird
Sky Seasoning = Sky Barstow
Camp Wonderful = Red April
Screamin' Millie = Captain Credible
Little Pig's Treat = Maggie Claire Cross
How Many, How Much = French Films About Trains
Snowman = Craven Canary & Happiest Lion
Paul Bunyan = The Peculiar Pretzelmen

artwork by Jon Carling