Thompson | Farrell

About

I was deep into rehearsing my short plays collectively called Political Suicide when I began to think we needed a kick-ass song to feed the fire I’d started and that’s where “This Isn’t Your Party” came from. I couldn’t have imagined how prescient the piece was or that a dozen years later the whole concept of political parties would be even more divisive and disturbing. If you listen to the lyric, you’ll hear how unsparing the message is

All you old hat Democrats
And Republican hacks
Who haven’t decided where your hearts are at

as in get over yourselves and do better. I gave the words to my ever reliable fellow troublemaker Joe Delault and he gave me Samantha Farrell, which is only the greatest gift a man could ever receive. She came up from Boston and did a one-take wonder recording of the song and nailed it. And has somehow never left my head or my heart. She and Joe and I have collaborated on a slew of songs, not all of them finished yet but will be. You can listen here to two Sam and I wrote together, “Meet Me Online,” written when that was the only way to make and keep connections, and the hauntingly elegiac “Forever Wright.” Samantha is forever my go-to chanteuse, with the pipes of an organ and the failsafe instincts that make her the songwriting collaboratrice of my dreams.

Samantha Farrell
Samantha Farrell

Forever wright*

Lyrics by Ernest Thompson
Music by Samantha Farrell
Performed by Samantha Farrell

meet me online*

Lyrics by Ernest Thompson
Music by Samantha Farrell
Performed by Samantha Farrell

*Licensing rights must be obtained. For contact information, click here.

MAMA AT MIDNIGHT

La Mama, New York, NY
A staged reading of Karen Black’s powerful play, starring Ms. Black, Gail Brown, Barbara Haas, Eric Sutton and Kat Yew