If you're like me, you wake up every morning with a powerful desire to hear music written by a United States Senator. So, if you're like me, you'll be glad to know that Senator Orrin Hatch has a new album out. Or, according to his website, HatchMusic.com, six new albums out.
Can that be true? Is it some kind of a misprint? Six? Can it possibly be that the mild-mannered Senator from the mild-mannered state of Utah is the Stephen King of the music industry, producing work after work as if posessed by a demon?
Don't ask me. I do attitude, not information. But I can tell you that Hatch has a history of amazing bursts of creativity. Here's the story of how he got into the music business to begin with:
While attending college at Brigham Young University, Orrin developed an ardor for writing poetry.
Now, let me just stop you right here. I want everyone to take a moment to picture Hatch, in the willowy spring of his youth, away from home for the first time, neatly dressed and bright-eyed, indulging his ardor for writing poetry. Got it? OK, let's move on.
Amidst all of his studies and activities during college and since then, he has found time to develop his poetic talent. In 1996 singer, songwriter Janice Kapp Perry, caught wind of Orrin's talent and approached him about writing some hymns with her. Orrin took this as a compliment but didn't believe that Janice was serious,--until four months later when they bumped into each other at another event, and Janice again presented her request. That weekend he sat down and wrote ten songs for her.
The world is full of people with day jobs who can write 10 songs in a weekend. I've known drunks who could write a song-a-minute until someone tossed them out of the bar on their butts. The thing about show business in all of its forms -- even Senatorial music -- is distribution. It's no so much writing the songs as it is getting someone to listen to the songs you write.
Now, cynics (I see you out there, cynics) might say that it's a lot easier for a United States Senator to get his music heard than, say, just a regular Joe. Obviously, if Senator Orrin Hatch walked up to, for example, Bono and handed him a cassette, saying, "It's a demo of some songs I've written," Bono is going to listen to that tape, if only for laughs. (Bono and Hatch are friends, by the way, and the U2 singer once suggested that Hatch work under a pseudonym: Johnny Trap Door.) But Hatch has done more than get people to listen. He gets people to pay.
Last year, according to the Houston Chronicle, Hatch made $33,000 in royalties on the more than 300 songs he has co-written. The songs have titles like, "God Bless Our Homes and Families" and the weirdly Yakov Smirnoffian "You Gotta Love This Country."
Hatch has some of the attributes of a crashing bore when it comes to his music. Read between the lines of this column in the Christian Science Monitor:
"It's more than a hobby. I've got a lot of music people like," he (Hatch) explains during an unscheduled interview with two journalists that was heading deep into its second hour (before this one had to go rush home to feed guests).It all started with one of those odd-ball questions journalists ask senators they meet in the hall: "Senator, as a songwriter, what do you think of the music that is coming out of 9/11?"
"Are you interested in hearing any of my music?" he replied. Uh, well sure.
Hatch has been, of course, a powerful ally of the music industry, doing everything he can to protect the interests of powerful music distributors against advances in technology that might break their stranglehold on the business. He has advocated allowing companies to scan the web for pirated software and music; he's posited the theory that those companies should be allowed to inspect and wipe clean the hard drives of people they decide are illegally storing copyrighted material. Nonetheless, he is also an innovative marketer, using the power of the Internet to allow people to sample and purchase his CDs.
If you're so inclined, you can go here to listen to some of his music, and if you have doubts even after that of his passion and seriousness, you can go here to see a picture of Senator Hatch with Barry Manilow. Special bonus photo: scroll down a ways, and you'll find a picture of Hatch going all Jerry Lee Lewis with Donny Osmond and Paul Williams.
Because, clearly, Hatch has music in his soul. As the Monitor says:
In the end, it's not about the money or the celebrity yet to come. He just hopes to make enough to continue to produce albums. "I have these really lovely thoughts all the time," he says. "I write things to help people." He especially likes writing songs for friends. He loves to hear that Sen. Ted Kennedy and his wife, Vicki, still play the song he wrote for them, "Souls Along the Way." He wrote "The Difference Makes the Difference" for Muhammad Ali.
Now, I'm all for politicians getting along. But I'm not sure I approve of Orrin Hatch writing songs for Ted Kennedy. I'm not sure I approve of that at all.
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