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56 Free to Be . . . the Music Stephen Lawrence It started one day when I sat in Marlo Thomas’s living room on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, as a group of people brainstormed the ideas that would coalesce into Free to Be . . . You and Me. Bruce and Carole Hart had recently introduced me to Marlo and invited me to work on their new project. The energy in the room was palpable. I knew that whatever developed from this meeting, I wanted to be part of it. I don’t think we would have predicted that a timeless phenomenon was germinating in the room at that moment, but I did have a feeling that we were embarking on something bigger than deciding what to have for lunch. All of the themes resonated within me: gender stereotypes; the importance of friendship and love; the need to express emotions; and, of course, the freedom to be who you want to be. My job as musical director would be to compose music to express these ideas. I would also arrange and conduct my own music as well as the songs written by others. Bruce Hart and I were given the job of writing a title song. Coming up with titles was among Bruce’s special gifts. Within a few days he showed me a lyric. “There’s a land that I see where the children are free” seemed just right, an invitation to a world filled with boundless possibility. I composed the music in one day. I work best—and fastest—when fighting a deadline. Early on, I discovered that stalling leads to more stalling and composing leads to more composing. As a Sesame Street composer, I once composed the music for seven songs in ten days. I was pleased with all of them. I am motivated to work quickly so I have the luxury of throwing out early ideas if they don’t pass the overnight test: I record a piece into my computer—for “Free to Be,” of course, it was a tape recorder—and forget about it. The next morning, I hear it fresh, and if it’s not good enough, out it goes and I start again. “Free to Be” passed the test. I knew that people of all ages would be able to hear it easily and sing it easily. Free to Be . . . The Music 57 Music and lyrics from other songwriters began to appear, and performers were recruited and matched to them. Marlo and Harry Belafonte were a perfect fit for Carol Hall’s wonderful song, “Parents Are People.” The instrumental tracks for the album and television special were recorded on sixteen-track tape in New York City. Marlo’s voice was recorded there, and we recorded Harry singing in Las Vegas.They were also shot lip-syncing in various locations around New York City. The rolls of tape, 2 inches wide and 10.5 inches in diameter, soon became too valuable to lose, so we never checked them with our luggage when flying.We always carried them with us. Of course, we had made backups, but in those predigital days, there was some loss in quality when tapes were duplicated. We didn’t want to take any chances. The great football player Rosey Grier was an inspired choice to sing Carol Hall’s “It’s All Right to Cry.” Carol had written it as a simple poetic statement on the value of expressing emotions. When I played the original arrangement for Rosey, he asked if I could add a stronger beat to it and illustrated by tapping his foot in tempo. I took his foot tapping—some might say stomping—and built the arrangement around that. For the album, Diana Ross was set to sing my song “When We Grow Up,” with lyrics by Shelley Miller.The timing was tight, and I wrote the arrangement on the plane to California. She did the recording in one or two takes, exactly the way I wanted it. For the television version of Free to Be, this song was sung by Roberta Flack and Michael Jackson .They were perfect, singing the duet exactly as I had envisioned it without a word from me. Recordings did not always go so smoothly. Ed Kleban, who also wrote the lyrics for the Broadway show A Chorus Line, contributed the song “Let’s Hear It for Babies,” a new act we created for the television special. Mel Brooks seemed an inspired choice to...

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