Like Molly Brown
Like Molly Brown – The Song Story
The song “Like Molly Brown,” began with a text from my friend and creative colleague Parker J. Palmer. We had been talking about the challenges of being a musician during the Covid pandemic, joking a little about all the countless video tutorials I’d watched while working to build a home studio, and then creating my own professional streaming studio for livestream music performances. Later Parker texted, “You know, you’re kind of a Molly Brown. ‘You just keep on rowing.’ It made me laugh and I grateful for the encouragement.
This texting conversation had come on the heels of presenting a concert and workshop for the Wise Women & Spiritualty series hosted by Helen Blier and the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. Just the day before, Helen and I had a conversation about all the women we knew who had responded to the challenges of Covid by rolling up their sleeves and making it work for their themselves and their families. We talked about how women have been responding to challenges with resilience, courage for generations and the importance of women’s contributions.
With these two conversations on my mind, I went out for a walk in the woods with my dogs. I started singing about wanting to be like Molly Brown, when the ship went down she got in the boat and she started to row toward an uncertain horizon.
It was also a way to talk about rowing for the long haul. That bringing in the full expression of the better, kinder more just world will take more than one life time, so we row and pull, pull and rest, balancing hard work with taking time to breath.
The song became a celebration of resiliency and hope, with tributes to women who have worked for a better more just world such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Rosa Parks and anti-slavery/women’s suffrage activist Lucretia Mott, honoring the ancestors who’s shoulders we stand upon.
It was also a way to acknowledge and encourage the women who are still rowing, still rolling up their sleeves, still making things work, still building the better world.
— Carrie
I want to thank and invite everyone who would like to support music and musicians to stream their new and past albums on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Prime Music. There have been concerns that streaming without purchase might somehow harm artists. This may have been true in years past, but in our current music world, the more you stream the more an artist is able to get their work into the world and support their musical vocation. So dear friends... streaming is not just okay with artists, artists are encouraging people to stream and stream often!
“Carrie Newcomer’s Until Now Album and companion book of poetry Until Now: New Poems are poignant works about what connects us as human beings. The poems and songs in both collections acknowledge loss and struggle while lifting up resiliency, hope and the ongoing process of transformation.
The song, Like Molly Brown celebrates the courage and contributions of the strong women who came before us, and the dedicated women who continue the work of justice. ”
