Peter Alsop‘s SONGS TO CHEW

    Today is April Fool’s day, and our song comes from my “Wha’d’ya Wanna Do?” album.  It’s called DON’T TRICK YOUR DAD.  Most kids love to trick or fool the adults around them, because when they know something that the adult doesn’t know, they feel powerful!  Adults usually have more power and information than kids, so when kids can reverse the roles on them, they’re delighted!  Some homes and pa...

    Our “Song To Chew” for today, is WOMB ENVY performed and written by Ron Romanovsky and Paul Phillips, of ‘Romanovsky & Phillips’ fame!  It’s on my “Ebenezer’s Make Over” album; a collection of songs from the feminist Men’s and Women’s movements.  When I first met Ron and Paul and saw them perform, I felt an immediate bond with them because of their smart lyrics, their joy and the obvious fun t...

Today our ‘Song To Chew’ is BE GENTLE ROBIN from my “Wha’D’Ya Wanna Do?”album, written by Dr. Tedd Judd, a concerned Dad who gives advice to his young son Robin.  I love this song because it shows that if we want our children to be gentle, the best way to do that, is for us to model ‘gentleness’ for them.  I got spanked as a child, but I’ve never hit my kids.  I believe that hitting a child teache...

    I’m Peter Alsop and a big fan of ‘silly’, so our ‘Song To Chew’ this week is PASS IT ON! from my “Chris Moose Holidays” album.  It’s a wonderful song for creating discussions, which is what this podcast is all about.  It may be the first and only “sneeze-along song” you’ve ever heard!  Thirty years ago, there wasn’t a big political controversy about wearing face masks, but today our world is a...

    Our ‘Song To Chew’ today has a very disturbing title, K1*! THE CHILDREN.  It’s part of a feminist radio-play I wrote, “Ebenezer’s Make Over”, about Ebenezer Scrooge getting a feminist make-over from three spirits who show him how joyless and emotionally impoverished he has become, living in our patriarchal world.  The third Spirit shows Scrooge what his future will be, if he continues going in...

    Today’s Song To Chew from my ‘Stayin’ Over’ album is RACHEL & THE MOON.  Many years ago, my friend and teacher, Luke Barber told me about a story his young daughter Rachel had written in school.  Luke is a philosopher and a very deep-thinker, and the story touched him deeply because the story finished with something he had done with the best of intentions that hurt his little girl’s feelings....

    This week’s ‘Song To Chew’ is about food!  How appropriate!  JUNKFOOD JUNKIE was written by my old friend Larry Groce.  He let me record it on my first ‘Peter Alsop’ album back in 1975.  Larry’s best known for being the artistic director and host of “Mountain Stage”, a two-hour live music radio program produced by West Virginia Public Broadcasting on National Public Radio.  His song got lots o...

    Today’s song, I AIN’T AFRAID, is written and performed by Holly Near on my “Ebenezer’s Make Over” album.  It’s a courageous song about religion because this topic is so loaded with extremist ideas and sensitive, defensive feelings about people’s most devout spiritual beliefs and stories about their God or gods, that it can be physically dangerous to tread on these pathways.  Holly does it with...

    Today’s “Song To Chew” is the KIDS PEACE SONG from my “Take Me With You!” album.  In order to have peace in the world, it helps to know how to have peace within ourselves.  We plant the seeds for finding non-violent resolutions to struggles in the world when we speak up for ourselves without feeling fearful or needy.  If someone attacks us, we can protect ourselves without having to crush them...

    Today’s “Song To Chew” is MEN ARE GOOD, written and performed by Joe Jencks.  When I first heard Joe sing this song, it blew me away!  I’d never heard a song that gave credit to the many, many wonderful things that ‘men’, (and boys), do on a daily basis all around the world.  This version is on my “Ebenezer’s Make Over” album, (which is an adaptation of Dickens “Christmas Carol”).  It’s full o...

    Today’s song is called HEY EV’RYBODY from my “Take Me With You” album.  It’s about how we learn to do something we want to do!  Things like walking, or whispering or snapping our fingers.  We just have to keep trying over and over again until we can do it!  And after we work so hard to learn it, we want to show everybody what we can do!  Of course, we’re a little clumsy at first, but we practi...

    I wrote this week’s “Song To Chew” to help parents who are at their wit’s end with how to manage their young children.  It's called LITTLE KID from my "Uh-Oh!" album.  Sometimes parents look into their toolbox and the only tool they see, left for them to use, is physical punishment.  Parents don’t want to use that tool.  They only hit their children when they truly don’t know what else to do. ...

    This week, our song is from my ‘Family Roles’ album, … TAKE A STEP.  One of the most difficult things for some of us to do when we want to get something accomplished, is to begin the journey.  When we see other people who have lots of accomplishments out there in the world, we often ‘measure ourselves’ by them.  We want to accomplish things too, but as soon as we start a project, we’re confron...

    It’s New Year’s Eve today.  Tomorrow is 2022.  So today we’ll 'chew on a song' I wrote about about ‘Time’.  As we change the calendar year, our vacations from work and school give each of us a chance to reflect on how we spent our time this last year.  Many of us will resolve to spend it differently in the next year!  So this song’s called MY LITTLE CLOCK, part of my ‘In The Hospital’ album pr...

    Hi there!  I'm Peter Alsop.  Glad you stopped by!  Today is Christmas Eve, so we’ve got a “Story to Chew” instead of a “Song to Chew”.  I wrote and recorded this holiday story about LITTLE TREE and put it on my “Chris Moose Holidays” album.  It’s about ‘being special’.  We know that each of us creatures living on the Earth have our very own story, and that’s what makes each of us special.  Som...

    For our “Songs To Chew” episode this week, we’ll listen to NEW GROUND, from my ‘In The Hospital’ album.  Our lives shift when a big loss happens.  Things go along smoothly, then BANG!, something occurs and our lives change drastically.  Our perceptions shift and we see things with ‘new eyes’.  A little girl in a wheel chair once told me that I was ‘T.A.B.’  I said, “What does ‘T.A.B.’ stand fo...

    It’s that time of the year again!  So today we’ll listen to the title cut from my "Chris Moose Holidays" album!  It’s for anyone who feels clumsy, and for people who like puns!  “Chris” is an irrepressible moose, excited just like a little kid about everything that goes on around him!  We all know folks like that!  Maybe you’re one of us!  I used to spill the milk at least once each meal!  I’m...

    Our ‘Song To Chew’ this week is called THE GIFT from my "Chris Moose Holidays" album.  It’s sung by my daughter Willow, from the point of view of a child who tells her Mom, “I don’t want any gifts from Santa this year, all I wants is for you to please quit smoking.”  I’ve had parents tell me that it helped them quit.  After one of my shows, a friend told me he sat behind a couple of Moms and t...

    Today's ‘Song To Chew’ is DADDY’S ROLL, from my “Chris Moose Holidays” album.  It’s written from the point of view of a child concerned about the health and well-being of their parents, specifically about compulsive eating!  Of course, there’s nothing wrong with ‘eating’, but sometimes we over-eat or drink because we feel sad or scared or angry, and eating comforts us and fills us up, so we do...

    Our Song To Chew this week, WHEN ONE IS TOO MANY, was inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous saying, “one is too many, and a thousand ain’t enough!”  When we try to soothe our painful feelings, by using medicators like alcohol or other drugs, food or even compulsive behaviors we can become addicted and unable to stop.  We start on the path to recovery, when we understand that we NEED to feel pai...

    Today, we’ll listen to a song that’s a true story about Dan Murrow, a therapist who was fired for hugging his patients.  He was convinced that hugging between consenting adults was therapeutically helpful, contrary to the hospital’s policy.  It’s called THE HUG, and it was written by Fred Small, a wonderful singer-songwriter, old friend, activist and pastor dedicated to healing the earth, seek...

    When our ‘Song To Chew’ for this week was written 30 years ago, it would have been thought of as a song that only women would sing.  But more recently, with awareness growing about the limitations of our ‘either-or' binary thinking, especially in the arena of gender, sexual orientation and identification, it’s now a song that anyone can sing!  DON’T PUT YOUR HAND IN MY PANTS, JUST ‘CAUSE WE’RE...

    It’s October and in honor of Halloween, our ‘Song To Chew’ today will be COSTUME PARTY.  I’ve noticed scatterings of children, test-driving their Halloween costumes in super-market aisles, making sure they work!  Hidden inside their new identity, they are no longer just a ‘child in a supermarket’!  Every one of us wears a costume.  Each day, the clothing we put on when we get up, is our costum...

    This weeks’ Song To Chew’ is HEAL THE BAY from my ‘Pluggin’ Away’ album.  It’s an anthem, and a plea to all humans to help save this planet of ours.  If we want a clean, unpolluted non-toxic environment, we must first be able to imagine one.  When we throw something “away”, it doesn't really go “away”, it just goes somewhere else!  So it’s up to each of us to take care of our biosphere.  Even...

    Today’s ‘Song To Chew’ is the title cut from my GROW IT AT HOME album.  It’s about where we get our food.  I used to read food labels to see what chemical additives were in food before I bought it, and a friend suggested that I also check out where the food comes from. I was amazed at how far some of my food had traveled to get to me! And at how much extra money we were wasting by importing fo...