November 20, 2019

Fifty. A Phoenix Moment.

20 minutes

For many years I have privately loved the song Total Eclipse of the Heart, by Bonnie Tyler. I started to love it when it came out in 1983, when I was fourteen.

This month I’m turning fifty. And for some reason, every time I think about turning fifty, I think about singing this song that I’ve loved for over over thirty years, and making other people listen to me sing it. I guess in a way it’s a kind of phoenix moment I’m hoping for. That I’ll burn up in some exquisite shame and then I’ll be born again into the second chapter of a century.

So I asked my friends Mike and Brian and Tobin to record the song with me in the East Calais community center at the back of the post office.

I knew they didn’t like the song and they didn’t really want to do it, so I felt really bad asking them to do it, which in a way seemed like part o the phoenix moment I was looking for.

I feel ambivalent about turning fifty. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen next. So I recorded conversations with some friends about getting older. I talked with my son Henry, who’s 16. Bianca Giaever is 29. Scott Carrier is 60-something. And Clare Dolan is around my age.

Here’s a show about turning fifty and recording Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Credits

Thank you to Scott Bassage for helping me secure the best recording studio in central Vermont at the back of the East Calais post office

Thank you to the band: Brian Clark, Mike Donofrio and Tobin Anderson (pictures below)

Thank you to my friends who talked with me for this show: Scott Carrier, Clare Dolan, Bianca Giaever and Henry Heilman

Sponsor!

This show is sponsored by the excellent people at Honey Road, making the best food in Burlington on the corner of Church and Main. Click on the picture and check out the menu…

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By Erica Heilman / Rumble Strip, Erica Heilman

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