Peter Alsop‘s SONGS TO CHEW

    Today we'll listen to 2 songs; LOOK AT THE CEILING, written from the point of view of a young girl who dissociates in order to survive her sexual abuse.  It's used in treatment programs, classes, training workshops, and private practice for adults and teens.  Therapists have used this song for years to gently get this subject out onto the table, and 'break the ice' for clients and women's grou...

    Today we'll listen to a song that prescribes a cure for sexual harassment!  It's been wildly acclaimed by thousands of feminists as we continue the fight to stop violence against women!   From my "Fan Club Favorites" album we'll listen to GIVE YOURSELF A HAND!  It's was inspired by a friend of mine, Dr. Betsy Stanko, a professor of Sociology who's been described as a radical feminist criminolo...

    There are lots of entanglements in our closest relationships.  We make commitments, and bring our own baggage with us, packed with our fears, hopes and stories.  In some cases, when the honeymoon's over and the work begins, we feel constrained and unable to unwind from each other with nowhere to go for help.  We strike out physically or verbally, and one or both of us may look for someone else...

    Do you wonder what to do when the world goes crazy all around you?  For today's SONG TO CHEW, we'll listen to ANTHROPOLOGIST from my "Camping With Dads" album and share a technique I use when this happens to me.  It's my 'tip for the week!'  Just because we're bored or stuck somewhere that we don't really want to be, why get all uptight and angry, when instead, we can just put on our Anthropol...

    Did you ever wish that you'd done something, that you didn't do?  Then later on, it was too late?  Today's 'Song To Chew' is THE DRAGON WHO FLIES BY MY WINDOW.  It's about 'remorse'.  A sign on my wall says "Sometimes you just have to take the leap, and build your wings on the way down!"  Good advice, but if we don't get our wings built fast enough, we quickly learn to be more cautious.  Feeli...

    Today's 'Song To Chew' is 'CLEAN OUT THE ATTIC' from my 'Chris Moose Holidays' album. My family had an old wooden chest in our attic, full of my great grandmother's lace doilies that my Mom didn't want us kids to ruin by spilling juice on them, so she kept them locked in the attic, starched and ironed all throughout our childhood.  When she died, we opened the chest, and discovered the beauty...

    We've had a momentous week here in America, so this week's "Song To Chew" is "WE CAN BOUNCE" from my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  I often write kid songs that help parents understand important things about their kids.  Today's song is about some of the things I learned from my Dad, that can help and inform kids about their parents.  Even though my Dad gave me "good advice', I still had to learn t...

    Our SONG TO CHEW today is "Some Gifts" from my CAMPING WITH DADS album.   I make a distinction between giving a 'gift' and giving a 'present'.  A child comes home from school and 'presents' Mom with a "birthday crown" made of yellow construction paper, taped together with glitter and dried pieces of gold elbow macaroni glued on it.  Mom wears it around the house; maybe even to the store, becau...

    It's a very different Christmas this year, due to the isolated distancing we observe in response to the threat of CoVid.  I thought we might listen to "When Jesus Was A Kid" from my CHRIS MOOSE HOLIDAYS album to helps us focus on caring about others, sung magnificently by my daughter Willow.   While listening to a conservative Christian talk radio show, where the host made mean-spirited commen...

    Today our song is "Christmas Cheer", from my CHRIS MOOSE HOLIDAYS album, sung by my nephew, Marshall McDaniel when he was a wee-little tyke!  "Christmas Cheer" is the code name for 'alcohol during the holidays'.  It's a tradition in many cultures, and for generations kids have watched adults celebrate with alcohol, and then do stupid and dangerous things.  Most kids just accept it.  They feel...

    Today's song is 'unusual'.  Actually, many of my songs fit into that category!  "Buy Me Something" is on my CHRIS MOOSE HOLIDAYS album.  It's great for discussing the trappings of capitalism, and how we and our children can become trapped and addicted to shopping for things obsessively and compulsively.  After hearing this song, parents would often say, "My children already know this song!  Th...

   This week begins our 'Happy Holidays', so from my 'Chris Moose Holidays' album, we'll listen to "The Night Before Hannukah", about Santa showing up in a Jewish home.  I received an invitation to a 'Weinukkah' celebration from a couple of wonderful actor friends.  I asked what a 'Weinukkah' celebration was, and they said an old German refugee woman told them she didn’t know she was Jewish when s...

    On SONGS TO CHEW today we'll check out "Let's Go On Safari, Into My Sister's Nose".  As a performer, if I want to get kids' attention, I just have to mention "boogers" or "underwear", and they'll start laughin'!  It never fails!  This is a great song to let our imaginations run wild, and it also gives us a chance to think about 'teasing'.  Teasing is "playing with someone else's pain without t...

   Today we'll listen to a song called "Eulogy".  It touches on how we feel when there's been a significant loss in our lives. Fans tell me they've played this song at funerals for their loved ones. With all the CoVid deaths soaring around us, our mortality is very present in ways that it wasn't before this pandemic hit.  Death is very scary for most of us. I've lived with Death standing just off...

   Today we'll listen to a song I recorded back in 1981 on my UNIFORMS album, "Hopelessly Heterosexual".  I first played it in public at the 5th National Conference of the National Organization of Men Against Sexism.  I'd written lots of songs about gender and human sexuality, and I wanted to make sure that my humor wasn't inadvertently stepping on anyone's toes, or being politically insensitive. ...

    On today's SONGS TO CHEW podcast we'll listen to "Dads 'N Boys" from my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  We grow-up in patriarchal cultures from all around the world, and we learn that 'real men' NEVER do anything that a girl does, like 'caring for others'.  We learn that's 'not cool!'  This song lists many traits that Dads and boys have, and it reminds us that to build a more caring world, Dads and...

    Today we'll listen to a song I didn't write.  It's by my friend Stuart Stotts who plays one of the dads on my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  It's called "Different Choice".  The hidden messages we learn about male privilege and entitlements are so subtle and deeply woven into the cultures we grew up with, that it's difficult to "tease" them out of the fabric of our childhood.  CAMPING WITH DADS is...

    Today we'll listen to "It's Only A Wee-Wee, So What's The Big Deal?"  It's a song about gender, written in 1981, and it's still sweeping the Montessori schools of the country!  My old buddy Utah Phillips used to sing this one.  He called it, "a full bore, overhead cam, spoke wire-wheels, no holds barred damn kids song!"  I love playing it because it generates discussions about the ways that bo...

    My SONG TO CHEW today is"Gotta Be Somewhere", the last song on my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  I thought it would be wonderful to finish the album with a song that is both a recap of our camping adventure, and a charming existential mystery about whether or not we ever went on the trip at all!  Ever been somewhere that you wish you weren't?  It can be miserable!!  But why choose stress?  If we te...

    Today we check out "I Brought A Gorilla Home" from my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  Kids love to feel they've got control of things around them, because in real family life, they often don't have much control.  When I'd take my kids to a zoo, I'd watch the great apes behind the shatter-proof glass or surrounded by an outdoor moat.  I'd watch their eyes follow us.  Kinda like being in "the slammer"...

     This weeks song is "I Wear Pink" by Steve Denyes, from my CAMPING WITH DADS album.  The Dads on the album talk with the kids about all the "Spose-tahs" we grew up with.  We were taught that boys were never 'spose-tah' wear pink and that girls were 'spose-tah' only do girl-things", mostly with other girls!  Lots of the 'spose-tahs' have changed, but they're still there!  They come from our fam...

    Today's SONG TO CHEW is "Asleep At The Helm".  It's clear that many of the men 'at the helms' of our "ships of state" around the world have been running us onto the rocks!  It's past time for us men to put aside any of our 'dinosaur-type' thinking, and ask our feminist sisters to take over and chart some different courses to safer harbors; - where women's healthcare is defined by what women ne...

    Today's SONG TO CHEW is "Spit Ball" from my "Camping With Dads" album.  My eleven-year-old grandaughter, Quinnlyn, sings it with me.  It's about escalation and revenge.  At school, we used to chew up paper, make it gooey, then flick it on our finger at another kid, who then flicked their own spit balls back at us.  It was gross and mostly boys who did it.  Kids may not know the word "escalatio...

Today's SONG TO CHEW is "Buddies" from my UNIFORMS album.  This song is for buddies who love each other, regardless of their gender.  It works well to generate discussions about homophobia and sexual orientationism.  When I wrote this song back in 1978, there was homophobia all around us.  There have been lots of feminist men's songwriters and performers writing wonderful songs that shed light on...

   This week's Song To Chew from my CAMPING WITH DADS album is "Stronga".  I made up the word to remind us that our old stories about "male strength" don't include the concept that 'true strength' has an element of empathy for those who don't have the same strength and access that we do.  It takes real "stronga" strength to pay attention and hold back our advantage, so someone else can be lifted a...