Massachusetts-based musician Alastair Moock couldn’t have imagined the sort of world he’d be releasing Be a Pain: An Album for Young (and Old) Leaders into. I mean, sure, the year 2020 will feature a United States Presidential election, not to mention many other down-ballot elections — questions of leadership would have been front-of-mind for many adults and probably not a few kids as well.
Alastair and a group of kids
But [practicing physical distancing, gesturing broadly from his home office] this?
Yeah. Not the way most musicians would want to introduce their brand new album to the world.
As I think about it, though, we’re probably thinking even more about leadership and grappling with how a society decides what’s best for all of us. They’re not easy questions — if they were, elected officials and the public wouldn’t be having so many discussions about the best way forward.
In putting together his last album, Singing Our Way Through: Songs for the World’s Bravest Kids, recorded in the wake of his 5-year-old daughter Clio being diagnosed with cancer, Moock says that although he loves putting “words and music together in a harmonious way… you can’t solve every puzzle for every listener.” Moock goes on to say:
When it came to difficult subject matter like life and death, and dealing with fear, my natural instinct to try to offer solutions fell short time and time again. I wanted to tell kids, "everything will be OK." But I knew I couldn't honestly offer that assurance. Instead, I had to learn how to let things lie: ask questions, plant seeds, let the listener meet me halfway with their own experience.
I brought that experience to the also-challenging political material on Be a Pain. This time I went into the project knowing that I wouldn't be able to provide all the answers. I would need to frame songs in a way that kids and parents could do some of the problem-solving on their own –– and, hopefully, also together.
That openness is heard most directly on the album’s opening track, “What Is a Leader?,” which is given its world premiere here. For obvious reasons, a lot of kids music answers questions, but this track mostly just poses questions. Moock comments:
I wondered if, rather than telling kids what it means to be a leader, I could ask them to tell me. I wrote a bunch of musical questions about what a leader might look like, talk like, and do. I thought I might leave the song there, but then it occurred to me: why not ask actual kids to tell me what a leader is and record their responses? That's what my producer, Anand Nayak, and I spent a few months doing. Eventually we ended up with a stockpile of fantastic, varying answers from kids aged 4 to 14 which we were able to weave into the song.
I’m glad I get the chance to share this song right now. In times of great uncertainty, asking the questions and thinking about the answers is one of the most important things we can all do, young and old. Be a Pain is released on April 3; you can also watch Moock live weekly on Facebook and YouTube.
