I Think My School's A Spaceship

"Seatbelts in the classroom"

It was 2005, and I was immersed in “playing with” and, more accurately “learning” a relatively new Mac app called Logic Express. It was more energizing than I could imagine with my music writing!

Years earlier, while I wrote Can You Tie Your Own Shoes?, Picture Day, and What’s a Yule Log, I had this idea for a song about a school that WAS a spaceship. How would this work for the kids? What musical vibe would suit the idea best? What I did know was that I wanted it to be an illustration in the music of the concept - not just lyrics and a title that sounded like the songs by the stable of writers at the publishing company. To my ears, those tracks all sounded too much alike and, well, stale. That wouldn’t do for a spaceship school!

When I first started writing music in 1996-97, I knew nothing about piano, just the guitar. To make a respectful start, I purchased a just released (‘96), new Ensoniq MR-76 keyboard. This was a complete synthesizer workstation with a drum machine and large internal sounds library. The “workstation” part meant I could record parts of musical ideas into sections for later assembly into a finished song structure. I would stay up late into the evening coming up with ideas that would become demos for the recording studio. It was beyond fun.

MR76 Sounds Demo

Working with Logic Express and later Logic Pro multiplied the capabilities of the MR 76 exponentially. My sound library was now almost unlimited! I had enjoyed writing songs like “Picture Day”, and “Can You Tie Your Own Shoes?” using sounds I never thought I’d have. I Think My School’s a Spaceship was another step into my own growing, creative expression along with the lyrics the kids sing along with.

Go ahead, sing along with it yourself. Have fun!

These kids are imagining AND singing.