11/07/2022
1975: A bunch of us were working for days to plan out a women's program for KPFK Los Angeles. We didn't have a name for the program yet. We all liked KPFA Berkeley's "Unlearning to Not Speak," but we couldn't steal that fine title. We were just throwing out thoughts to inspire each other, and someone mentioned Mao's quote that "women hold up half the sky."
Our mentor, News Director Carol Breshears, blurted out, "Hell, we're 51% of the population, we hold up MORE than half the sky!" We all laughed and generally agreed that we had found a title for our program.
But what would we do for a theme song? We couldn't think of an existing song that covered the concept, and there was no Internet to search. I said, "I'll bet we could find a local songwriter who could write something for us." They looked at me like I was nuts.
But it was lunchtime, so we broke for an hour. People went to various restaurants in the area, but I stayed at the radio station.
The thing about KPFK, y'see, is that they have this monstrous grand piano in Studio A. It's so big, they built the studio around the piano. It's for recording live music for radio broadcast, but it goes unused quite a bit. So while everyone else was having a sandwich, I sat down at that fabulous keyboard and I wrote this song, which I played for them when they got back. And we had our theme song.
I'm sure the show has been off the air for many years now, and we all went on to other places and things. Only recent events have caused me to think about this song again -- so here it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAR7sCOfzSQ
This song originated as the theme song for a women's program on KPFK Los Angeles. We were talking about the Mao quote that "women hold up half the sky," when...