Zoe Lewis "Snow White"

My wife and I read books to our kids at bedtime. For the sheer fun of it, I read anything with Winnie-the-Pooh or Nutbrown Hare with an English accent, trying to mimic the narrators of the popular series. I am not sure my kids are as tickled as I am when I do so, as evidenced one day when my three-year-old asked me not to read the book that way.

America is obsessed with England. Look at the past few months. A new royal baby. Simon Cowell’s scandal. John Oliver’s successful run as host of the Daily Show. But why is it that when Brits sing, their English accents conspicuously disappear? That is not the case with Provincetown darling Zoe Lewis.

The singer-songwriter’s seventh album was in 2011. I have been awaiting an eighth, but it turns out I am going to have to wait awhile. Lewis just wrote a musical! Titled Across the Pond, it is about “an assortment of quirky transatlantic passengers [who] contemplate the definition of home high in the clouds somewhere in-between Heathrow and JFK!” After a sell-out run in June, it is being brought back to Provincetown Theater in mid-October.

I first reached out to Lewis after her release of Small is Tremendous in 2004, when I had just taken over as editor of Cape Cod Magazine. When I emailed her to request a comp copy, she was through the roof that we were giving her the publicity. When I got the album, I immediately fell for her. There were so many memorable songs, as she mixed pop, jazz, and even some Latin and Middle Eastern sounds effortlessly. The songs are fun, and some are something you’d rock out to with your young children, but they all have subtle and not-so-subtle subtexts. This one is just plain fun! (But the premise…not for children)


Hear the song on Youtube.