Eventually, I got interested in musical theater. I would pick different musicals, and learn the soundtracks. My favorites were Jesus Christ Superstar, She Loves Me, and Merrily We Roll Along, and I knew every word of every song by heart. Those musicals, which tell stories with rhymes and melody, would greatly impact my future songwriting.

I still didn’t think about boys much in high school, except the male teachers, as long as they were at least 35 years old. I finally noticed guys in my own age bracket when I got to college. I never completely got over my fascination with older men, though. (You can hear all about it in my songs “Chickadee Farm” and “Old Man.”)

In 1997, I went off to Beloit College, a small (1200 student) liberal arts college in south-eastern Wisconsin. I joined the orchestra, and took my violin lessons with yet another teacher. I started taking Russian language classes so I could impress my former Cleveland violin teacher, Lev, on my occasional visits to Cleveland. I ended up majoring in Russian. With the Russian major, a music minor, a lot of coursework in anthropology (check out “Prosimian”), some geology classes (check out “The Geologist Song”), and an acting class, I got that depth of subject-dabbling that liberal education is famous for.


Go back - Read More