I didn’t know it when I applied for the grant for Songs about Books, but there is something in the air right now around the intersection of music and literature. We’ve got Songs about Books, of course; but then after I’d gotten the grant I found out about the Bushwick Book Club and its Seattle branch (which I will be taking part in on April 18th); and now we have Michael Zapruder and Pink Thunder.
Pink Thunder is a collaborative project. Zapruder – who is an incredibly talented singer/songwriter/arranger/performer with four solo albums under his belt – wrote songs using the words of several contemporary poets affiliated with the Poetry Bus (which Seattleites might remember seeing at Bumbershoot a few years back), including his brother, Matthew Zapruder. (Just to tie this back into my own Songs about Books project, the Poetry Bus was put together by Wave Books, who published Bluets, the book I’m tasked with writing songs about.)
There are two songs currently posted on the Pink Thunder web page, and they leave me excited to hear more. Further adding to the intrigue is this in-depth interview about the project between Zapruder and musician/writer Scott Pinkmountain (whom we’ve mentioned here before):
SP – Could you ever conceive of writing the word, “boobs,” in a song?
MZ – [Laughs] I know. I thought, “I gotta find a woman to sing this song,” and Eli [Crews, the recording engineer] said, “Why? It’s funny this way. It’s interesting. You could just be an overweight guy with boobs.” [Laughs]
SP – But the word itself is brutal to have to sing.
MZ – It’s so hard to perform. I did it once and couldn’t keep from laughing. You sing the whole song and then in the middle you say, “Somewhere in there I grew these enormous boobs,” and people start to laugh. They’re like, “What the fuck are you doing?” The effect is even more pronounced live.
Go read the whole interview and hear some more song samples. According to the Pink Thunder site, they are “talking to publishers,” and we are to “stay tuned” for more info as to an actual release date. Consider me tuned, Pink Thunder!