Delightfully insightful songwriter Marilyn Walker is back with a new full-length album recorded live at The End music venue in Lafayette, Colorado. Marilyn likes to say that if she were a brand, it would be the local farmer’s market, reflecting her love of community and sustainability. The title track, Boulder Baby Boomer, is “Both a poke at our community as well as a response to all the ‘Hey boomers’ out there. We may be older than them, but we have plenty to contribute.” In her intro to Back in the Day, Marilyn explains that the evening’s theme is “bipolar,” covering both ends of the spectrum of emotions. From the sublimely funny Too Much Stuff and It Wasn’t Decaf to the devastating realities of a missing girl child of a single mother (Waiting for Marie) to a 14 year old girl separated from her family and locked in a cage (Before I Turn 15), no topic is off limits. Backed by Dawnia Dresser on vocals and Julian Peterson on guitar and vocals, Marilyn combines her sweet “girl next door” voice with her own playing on guitar, ukelele, and keyboard. Boulder Baby Boomer showcases Marilyn’s delicious stage presence and storytelling brilliance in front of a live audience. Marilyn’s songs, as a whole, are a love song to the world, an invitation to sit up and pay attention to all that is happening. Boulder Baby Boomer is a sampling of this delicious concoction. Strap in and enjoy the ride!
And Now About the Songs:
Boulder Baby Boomer introduces our silly songstress as she sings of the things she both loves and laughs at in her chosen hometown of Boulder, Colorado, home of what must be the happiest boomers on the planet. Sure, you may hold them in disdain, but it’s not their fault they’re living the good life. After all, is there anything cooler than a Boulder baby boomer? Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson vocals and guitar
Back in the Day is another humorous self-pejorative song looking back at how things have changed for Marilyn since those youthful days of smoking weed on the porch, and all the dreams that will never happen. But it all turned out great anyway, even if she never dates Harrison Ford or gets on Oprah.
Too Much Stuff is a Prine-esque comedy of the absurd story of the American penchant for buying and collecting “stuff.” Maybe it’s not just you who has too much stuff! It’s okay.
Angels on the Way was written just after Marilyn’s husband was hospitalized for a heart attack, capturing that “deer in the headlights” moment where everything seems to have shifted. And yet life goes on, the doctor is bizarrely warm and attractive while also kind and deeply compassionate. In these moments, where we may feel deeply alone, we also wonder if, just perhaps, there are angels on the way. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar
Before I Turn 15 is a plaintive, haunting piano-accompanied song in the voice of a 14-year-old girl locked in a cage and separated from her family. She dreams of escape, and how her most important dream is to not need to dream of escape, before she turns 15, a date celebrated in Mexico as a coming of age – the quinceañera. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar
I Brought Bread features a lost soul who finds their way home. We never find out why they left, but clearly much has happened to them. Their offering of bread is a way to make amends for something they imagine may be hard to forgive. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar
My Ranchito is a palate cleanser singalong and love song to Taos, New Mexico, specifically to the Los Cordovas community that sits along the Rio Pueblo just before it joins the Rio Grande. Few people understand how the history of New Mexico is complex and deeply multicultural. The traditional Spanish-speaking people go back many, many generations. This part of the USA is essentially indigenous and Mexican heritage. The Los Cordovas community was featured in a documentary, “And Now Miguel,” created by the US Dept. of State in 1953 as part of a series intended to highlight the beauty and possibilities of rural living. It became the basis for a children’s novel published in 1954, and later a feature-length movie. Some of the children in the movie still live on the land. Sung in both English and Spanish, My Ranchito is pure love. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar and vocals
Chasing Fireflies is Marilyn’s “love song to North Carolina, and to my father, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly when I was only 25.” Marilyn’s crystal-clear vocals remind us that life is both beautiful and uncertain. Enjoy the moment, for “Time is made of sand.” Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar and vocals
Homeless uses the ukulele and lovely vocal harmonies to set up a perky dream of youth – a mate, a dog, a house with a white picket fence and a swing on the porch. But some who dream always end up in a flashlight beam, because they are sleeping on a bench or in a park. Do we face them or turn away? If Homeless makes you a little uncomfortable, makes you wonder who you might be turning away from, then it’s done its job well. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar
It Wasn’t Decaf is about that moment so many of the caffeine-sensitive have experienced – when you were clear you wanted your drink decaffeinated, but then, oops…
Space Junk is a raucous, country-style comedy highlighting a very real and growing environmental issue – the collection of trash circling the planet Earth, breaking apart into smaller and smaller pieces that remain dangerous even at very small sizes. Marilyn uses this story of “trillion dollar trash” to highlight the selfish attitudes of certain politicians who enable and encourage the destruction. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar and vocals
Waiting for Marie is a chilling, sparsely told tale of a mother sitting up all night in the kitchen of her trailer, on her daughter’s 32nd birthday. The daughter is not there, because at 12 she disappeared and was never found, and the case was never really investigated. The song uses story to highlight how women and children who are either indigenous or non-white go missing at much higher rates than whites, and their disappearances are mostly inadequately investigated. Waiting for Marie is dedicated to the missing girls who have never been found, and in so many cases never really looked for. Are they still alive somewhere? How do their families cope with the just never knowing?
We Are Heard is a ride-along through heaven with the beloved John Prine, who wants to make sure that you make good decisions! A tribute that never says it’s a tribute, We Are Heard references many of Prine’s songs either directly or indirectly and features the heaven she thinks he would be in – one with a truly loving deity who hears all and accepts all, no matter our actions. Credits: Dawnia Dresser vocals, Julian Peterson guitar and vocals
