Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes"

We were going to write a song. It seemed about time.

I lived in a suite/dorm at UMass, with several guys who were actual musicians (as opposed to me, who wished he could play something). At least they let me sing.

We'd perfected a number of cover tunes (or, more accurately, beat them to death and had grown bored with our repertoire), and we were ready to try our hand at writing a song.

We were pitching ideas.

"We should write a song about a box," said Brett.

While Billy was the most proficient player, and Kurt has impeccable musical taste, it was Brett---the one who'd been playing guitar for only a few months---who had this loopy, brilliant and quirky creativity.

"What do you mean, a box?"

"You know. Like a cardboard box. On the side of the road. We should write a song about that."

I don't know what Kurt or Billy were thinking, because I don't think they responded either. I didn't say it out loud, but I thought it was the stupidest idea I'd ever heard.

As we let the conversation drift to the next idea, I thought to myself, Could there be a dumber subject to create a more boring song, than "a box"?

Tonight at 9pm, may I present to you an hour's worth of brilliant folks who had the same dumb idea.

On our free-form hour called The Hot Seat, listen in for a hour of songs about boxes by Tom Waits, The Decemberists, The Blues Brothers and Nirvana, as well as multiple versions of Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes."

And let the record show that after passing up the box idea, our brain trust settled on the utterly original, non-stupid-or-trite topic of writing a song about breaking up with a girl.

Genius!

The Hot Seat airs at 9pm ET. Stream it at mvyradio.


Hear the song on Youtube.