1943

Given today's dystopian political environment, I can hardly be blamed for looking back to a simpler time when America actually was, not only pretty great, but beloved across the world. (Well, except for Germany and Japan.) In terms of technique and content, this album's a bit of a departure. Instead of digging up old lyrics of my mom's and arranging them as pop tunes (well, okay, I did do one of those here), I invented an alternate Earth—one where I had been born in 1873, and was still alive in 1943, leading a big band on a USO tour instead of showing up decades later as a Boomer with a laptop.