Hold Me
This another 'spec' song for Uncle Tom's Cabin, and I like the melody a lot and think I should rewrite it and maybe come up with some better lyrics. These were inspired from the book and partly from the late Phil Baloun, who thought it was time for such a show. I'm not so sure about that, as those wounds are pretty deep, and even if it was time for Uncle Tom's Cabin as a musical, it really should come out of the African-American Experience, not from a Caucasian wannabe song writer. I am not the right person to make this show happen! Anyway, I rewrote the lyrics quite a bit before using them in my song, but I was still stuck with some phrases that just don't work for me that I had to keep. "Caught under a wheel" just won't connect with today's audiences. Most of the "Hold me, hold me tight" chorus lyrics are more mine, but when you collaborate, you either merge everything and run with it, or not. I have a feeling I'll write all the lyrics from scratch and maybe just keep the "Hold Me" and not much else.
Hold Me © 1982 by Stephen J. Cramer
[Not sure who the vocalists might be. The male lived in the same building as Phil. I think Irving Berlin and Tommy Tune lived there, too. I ran into them on the elevator a number of times when visiting to play my latest compositions for the show. NYC is a magical place that way. You are surrounded by so many talents and you realize as special as they are, they are just people who have already been discovered. It makes you wonder how many people surround us each day who haven't yet been 'discovered', and you have one more reason to treat everyone you meet as a potential 'star'.]