Peter Alsop‘s SONGS TO CHEW

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 few!  I wrote a song that was silly, but also had larger themes of world peace, and we'll talk about that process. Thanks for stopping by.  I’ll be back next week, with another ‘Song to Chew’!
~ Listen and subscribe to my Songs To Chew podcast = anywhere you get podcasts, or
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156
~ CAMPING WITH DADS = https://www.amazon.com/Camping-Dads-Peter-Alsop/dp/B08CS871QW/ref=sr_1_1
~ www.FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ www.Youtube.com/peteralsop  = videos
~ www.Patreon.com/peteralsop  = support my music & other artistic endeavors
~ www.peteralsop.com/music  = CDs & downloads

    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 get what we want from our parents!  School provides another opportunity, outside our family, to analyze a system and explore how to survive and thrive!  We pick up techniques watching the teacher and other students, then when we're older, we observe people at our workplace and get to practice how to share, lie, promise, fight, tattle, use honesty, kindness, loyalty and friendship.  Life's a big school where we can learn how to be 'gnarly' so we can help ourselves and the people around us feel lifted and successful.
~ Listen and subscribe to my Songs To Chew podcast = anywhere you get podcasts, or
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156
~ CAMPING WITH DADS = https://www.amazon.com/Camping-Dads-Peter-Alsop/dp/B08CS871QW/ref=sr_1_1
~ www.FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ www.Youtube.com/peteralsop  = videos
~ www.Patreon.com/peteralsop  = support my music & other artistic endeavors
~ www.peteralsop.com/music  = CDs & downloads

   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 magical flute. When the townspeople refuse to pay him, he charms their children and leads them away dancing and singing out of town never to be seen again.  The lesson that 'it doesn't pay to be greedy and dishonest', and that 'owning lots of things cannot bring happiness or love', seems to be one we need to learn over and over again.  In today's American culture, our capitalism requires constant, unsustainable growth, and sustainable-indigenous models of 'having enough' is something that most of us do not foster.  We need homes that are safe places for us to explore options, make mistakes and re-group, and where we give and receive support because we value each other more than we value our belongings.
~ Listen & subscribe to Songs To Chew anywhere you get podcasts, or
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156
~ CAMPING WITH DADS = https://www.amazon.com/Camping-Dads-Peter-Alsop/dp/B08CS871QW/ref=sr_1_1
~ www.FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ www.Youtube.com/peteralsop  = videos
~ www.Patreon.com/peteralsop  = support my music & other artistic endeavors
~ www.peteralsop.com/music  = CDs & downloads

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 professionals use visualization techniques to help patients support their own internal healing processes.  It helps them relax and become part of the team of people who work to make them healthier.  Children are very receptive to mental imaging or visualizing stories as it's something we do naturally while we listen to stories, or daydream. And it's not just for kids.  Adults who run businesses, parents, other-abled people and elderly folks use imagery to help change some of the negative stories we carry within us, so more positive outcomes can surface.  Check it out, and I'll see you next week for another ‘Song to Chew’!
~ Listen and subscribe to my Songs To Chew podcast = anywhere you get podcasts, or
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156
~ CAMPING WITH DADS = https://www.amazon.com/Camping-Dads-Peter-Alsop/dp/B08CS871QW/ref=sr_1_1
~ www.FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ www.Youtube.com/peteralsop  = videos
~ www.Patreon.com/peteralsop  = support my music & other artistic endeavors
~ www.peteralsop.com/music  = CDs & downloads
 

    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's a 'stranger', who is 'anyone we don’t know'; a man, woman, boy or girl.  If a child is 8 years old or under, and on their own, they should never talk to strangers, except in emergencies.  Kids over 8 years old, can talk to strangers, but they must keep a safe distance, and not give any personal information.  That's because kids under 8 can easily get distracted from the safety rules when they talk to someone. 
~ My 'Songs To Chew' podcast ~ link in bio, or wherever you get podcasts
~ Instagram.com/thepeteralsop
~ FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ Youtube.com/peteralsop
~ peteralsop.com
~ Patreon.com/peteralsop

    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 get podcasts or: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156 
~ Instagram.com/thepeteralsop
~ FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ Youtube.com/peteralsop
~ peteralsop.com
~ Patreon.com/peteralsop

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 feel guilty, and go on another strict diet, and the cycle continues.  In the animal kingdom hippos know who they are and they pay attention to what they do!  They know that the size of a package isn't as important as what's inside that package! 
~ My 'Songs To Chew' podcast ~ link in bio, or wherever you get podcasts or: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/peter-alsop-s-songs-to-chew/id1446179156  
~ Instagram.com/thepeteralsop
~ FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ Youtube.com/peteralsop
~ peteralsop.com
~ Patreon.com/peteralsop
 
 

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 uptight, I play with some the fearful thoughts and make them less scary, without making fun of anyone who feels afraid.  There's a video of this song on YouTube with about 240 thousand views.  It "gets this subject out onto the table", so families can air it out and let it breathe.
~ My 'Songs To Chew' podcast ~ where ever you get podcasts
~ Instagram.com/thepeteralsop
~ FaceBook.com/WeLikePeterAlsop
~ Youtube.com/peteralsop
~ peteralsop.com
~ Patreon.com/peteralsop