Fresh tracks circa Winter 2026!
Burn Down the Mainway
In January, I took a songwriting class with Blake Mills through School of Song. One of the prompts was to write about a fictional character in your hometown in 1968. I immediately thought of the riots that rocked Pittsburgh’s Hill District in the wake of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in April of that year.
Daring to Grow
Overstory by Richard Powers and The Trees Are Speaking by Lynda Mapes explore the interconnected miracle of trees and our natural world, as well as the perilous state our forests are in. They both can be horrifying, but I choose to take some hope from the regenerative primacy of the forests.
To the Lighthouse
The lyrics for this song were developed using the blackout poem technique using a page of Virginia Wolff’s novel To the Lighthouse as the source text.
Fire Up the Boiler
Another prompt from Prof. Mills was to develop a musical Étude with lyrics in haiku form. This is what I came up with.
Mike Buchman Music 