Rise Up Music Project

Rise Up Music Project

By Matt HalvorsonSociety & CultureArtsMusicPersonal JournalsPerforming Arts
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Rise Up Music Project episodes

  • Jan. 1, 2019: "All I Really Wanted," by Matt Halvorson
    All I Really Wanted is a song is about the experience of coming to understand that I don’t really know anything at all, which is a strange experience, but it’s also pretty liberating in its way. It’s also a song that expresses some of the anger I’ve felt at realizing that we are intentionally misled along the way. It’s harder and harder to ignore the feeling that much of what we take for granted was constructed to keep us fenced in. It’s harder and harder not to wonder, which of these things that I’ve taken for granted in my life as being good have been less than that? Or not what they seemed? And then it’s even harder to express those kinds of ideas without sounding crazy, or super vague, which is what I’m doing right now. But expressing those kinds of ideas is exactly what I’ll try to do this year, I guess. And with this song.
    Remember that we’ll also have a new song tomorrow from Benjamin Gore, a new song the day after that from Louie Opatz, and a new one the day after that from Cee Goods, and then from Nic Masangkay on Saturday and Stacy Rene Erenberg on Sunday, and on Monday, my good friend Jozzie Ellison will be the Rise Up Music Project’s first guest songwriter. He’s a good man and a good musician, and I think you’ll like him, just like I think you’ll like this whole project. It’s going to be a good year.
    8 min
  • Jan. 1, 2019: "All I Really Wanted," by Matt Halvorson

    This is the Rise Up Music Project for January 1, 2019. I’m Matt Halvorson, and my song for today is called “All I Really Wanted.”

    All I Really Wanted is a song is about the experience of coming to understand that I don’t really know anything at all, which is a strange experience, but it’s also pretty liberating in its way. It’s also a song that expresses some of the anger I’ve felt at realizing that we are intentionally misled along the way. It’s harder and harder to ignore the feeling that much of what we take for granted was constructed to keep us fenced in. It’s harder and harder not to wonder, which of these things that I’ve taken for granted in my life as being good have been less than that? Or not what they seemed? And then it’s even harder to express those kinds of ideas without sounding crazy, or super vague, which is what I’m doing right now. But expressing those kinds of ideas is exactly what I’ll try to do this year, I guess. And with this song.

    Remember that we’ll also have a new song tomorrow from Benjamin Gore, a new song the day after that from Louie Opatz, and a new one the day after that from Cee Goods, and then from Nic Masangkay on Saturday and Stacy Rene Erenberg on Sunday, and on Monday, my good friend Jozzie Ellison will be the Rise Up Music Project’s first guest songwriter. He’s a good man and a good musician, and I think you’ll like him, just like I think you’ll like this whole project.

    It’s going to be a good year.

    8 min
  • Rise Up Music Project: An Introduction
    This is the Rise Up Music Project at RiseUpMusic.org. I’m Matt Halvorson, and I will be one of six songwriters who will write, record and share one new song each week in 2019. I’ll be joined by Cee Goods, Stacy Rene Erenberg, Benjamin Gore, Nic Masangkay and Louie Opatz. And with a new guest songwriter joining us to round out every week, we’ll have brand new music for you at RiseUpMusic.org every day next year.
    But hopefully it will be something more than that in the end. This project is based on a belief in the power of personal storytelling and art to create shared understanding, and I think that’s a form of activism that’s hard to suppress. If we share our art and share ourselves — if in our case we write a song every week about what it’s like to be us that week, about how we’re seeing and experiencing the world, about what’s happening around us or some reflection of how we’re feeling — then through that sharing of ourselves, and that process of creating and reflecting, we’re putting something positive into the world. Our hope is that you’ll walk with us through 2019, that you’ll take a few minutes now and then to listen and participate in this experiment in activism and art and music. And if you’re so moved, we hope you’ll share something of yourself with us as well.
    Tune in for our first new song on January 1, and we’ll go from there.
    So, thank you for listening, and thank you for doing what you do. We appreciate you, and we hope you enjoy the Rise Up Music Project. We’ll be making it up as we go along. It’s going to be a good year.
    4 min

About Rise Up Music Project

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The Rise Up Music Project is a daily podcast bringing you a new song every day. It's a show about music, songwriting, self-examination, art as activism, the creative process, and so much more.…