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Produced by L a ws on W hite .Mixed by L a wson W hi te and Todd W hitelock at Good Chi ld Music S tudios .

Mastered by L a wson W hi te a t Good Chi ld Music S tudios .Edited by L a wson W h ite and Royce J e f fr es .

Instrumental t racks were recorded at Avatar S tudios , NYC,Todd W hi tel ock , engineer.

Vocal t racks were recorded at F lux S tudios , NYC,L a wson W hite , engineer.

Design by Da v i d St i th • Photography by J i l l S tein be rgGuitar samples recorded and per formed by A n d r e w M cKen n a L ee

Innova Director : P hi l i p B l a c k b ur n • Operat ions Manager : C hr is C a mpbel lPubl ic is t : Ste ve M cPhe rs on

Innova i s suppor ted by an endowment from the McKnight Foundat ion.

Product ion Credits :Produced by Beth Mor r i son P roje c t s

Directed by Yuval SharonLighting Design by Lucas Krech

Animation Design by Corey Michael SmithsonScenic & Costume Design by Chisato Uno

Suppor t for this recording was provided in par t by :The Puffin Foundat ion • The NewMusicUSA Composers Ass is tance Recording Fund

Spec ia l Thanks :Beth Morr ison, Kevin Noe, Brett Mitchel l , Todd Reynolds , Ei leen Mack, Justen

Bennett , Amber Ferenz, Richard Girardin, Gene Litt le, Joseph W. Litt le, EugeneWoznicki , Joseph T. Litt le, Joanne Woznicki , James F. F lynn, Utah Phi l ips , DavidAdam Moore, Caleb Burhans, James Johnston, Mel l i ssa Hughes, Kel l i Kathman,

Br ian Snow, Peter W ise, Mar y Lou Aleski , Cathy Edwards, Corey MichaelSmithson, Chisato Uno, Lucas Krech, Yuval Sharon, Gar th MacAleavey, Missy Mazzol i , Jef f rey Edelste in, Paul Lansky, Rinde Ecker t , S teven Mackey, W il l iam Bolcom, Royce

Vavrek, W il l iam V. Madison, OPERA Amer ica , Amer ican Opera Projects , AndrewThol l , New York City Opera, James Bobick, T imothy Jones , Chr istopher Burchett

www.davidt l i t t le .com • www.davidadammoore.comwww.newspeakmusic .org • www.toddreynolds .com

© 2013, David T. Litt le (BMI). Al l r ights reser ved.

pg 14 pg 3

I w ro te S o ld i e r S ongs to t r y to f i gu re th ings ou t . In 2004 I was inv i t ed by my fo rmer high school to speak with students about my life as a composer. Following my talk was my old fr iend, Justen Bennett , who was asked to ta lk about being a soldier. Justen had just returned from Iraq where, among other things , he had been a f ie ld medic , and had been among those who stormed Saddam Hussein’s palace. I fe l t a l i t t le s i l l y.

Exit ing the auditor ium I saw a display case, which I remembered as having been used to ce lebrate s tudent achievements : a v ictor y for the footbal l team, or the marching band, or photos from the musical that had happened the previous week. Now it was ful l of photos of alumni currently ser ving in Iraq and Afghanistan, dr iving tanks and carr y ing machine guns. Here, in the same case where the prom pictures used to go.

I remembered back to my days with them in c lass arguing about the ethics of V ietnam, or even Operat ion Deser t S torm. I remembered my att i tude at the t ime: that war was a lways wrong, and that those who s igned up to f ight i t were a lways fools . And yet , here were my fr iends—smart kids a l l—now in the deser t defus ing land mines .

I then thought of my own family. Although we are not an intensely mil i tar y family today, my genera t ion i s the f i r s t in near l y a centur y to not have a member in the se r v ice . My unc les were in V ietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and my grandfathers were in Wor ld War I I , in Europe. Cracks began to form in my absolut is t posi t ion, and quest ions began to ar ise.

To find my own answers , I ca l led ever y veteran I knew and asked them to speak with me about their exper ience. Ever yone I asked sa id yes . I t was f rom their s tor ies that this piece began to emerge. W hat s truck me most was that for a lmost a l l of them, this was the f i rs t t ime they had ever ta lked about their exper ience, even though for some they ’d lef t act ive duty near ly 40 years ago. This became central to the piece—what, for me, this piece is about: the imposs ibi l i t y of the te l l ing.

I never meant for this piece to prove a point , or even to have any kind of “message” to deliver. Rather, i t is mater ial presented for contemplation. I have selected and edited these inter v iews more as a way of shar ing than as a way of conv inc ing. By conduct ing these inter views, and writing this piece, I gained an awareness of the complexity and difficulty of the soldier ’s situation, and gained empathy and compassion for the men and women who have exper ienced the “one-way door ” o f combat ; where once you pass through, you may never fu l l y come back.

Da vid T. Litt le , November 2012

Da vid A dam Moor ebar i tone

Newspeak *Cale b Burhans , v io l in, voice

Mell i s sa Hughes , voiceJames Johnston , p iano, toy piano, synthesizer, voice

Da vid T. Litt le , drums, junk metal , e lectronics , voiceEileen Ma ck , c lar inet , bass c lar inet , voice

Br ian Sno w , ce l lo, voicePete r W ise , v ibraphone, percuss ion, voice

with specia l guests :

Kell i K athman , p iccolo, f lute, a l to f lute, voiceTodd Re ynolds , conductor, voice

* (Newspeak guitar i s t Taylor Levine doe s not appear on thi s r e cording.)

This work is based on and features inter views with the fol lowing veterans :

Justen Bennett (US Army)A mbe r Fe r enz (US Army)

Richar d Girar din (US Mar ine Corps)Gene Litt le (US Army)

Joseph W. Litt le (US Army)Eugene F. Woznicki (US Air Force)

This recording is dedicated to them.

for a fu l l t ranscr ipt ion of the inter views found in this work, p lease v is i t :www.soldiersongs.net

Soldier Songs was commiss ioned by the Pit tsburgh New Music Ensemble, whopremiered the or iginal vers ion of the work in 2006,

conducted by Br ett Mitchel l and directed by Ke vin Noe .

The vers ion of the work presented on this recording was completed for the BethMorr ison Projects product ion, and premiered at the Internat ional Fest iva l of Ar ts

and Ideas in New Haven in the summer of 2011, conducted by Todd Re ynol dsand directed by Yuval Shar on .

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Take this toThe President, andTell him thatHis letter can’t…

Not even signedBy human hand.Not even writtenBy a person.

This letter won’t,Nor uniforms,Not folded flags,Nor victories won…

Your practiced words,From scripts well learned,Cannot bring back…Cannot bring back…Cannot bring back my son.

Bring me back my son.

X. Two Marines (Age 53-57)

Two MarinesCame to my houseTo tell me thatMy son...

A Letter fromThe President,“Regretfully...”My son...

I did notAnswer the door.I knew the speech,Heard it before.

“Bravely fought...In combat fell...For Liberty...”My son...

I took my griefOut to the yard, andWhile they knocked,I doused their carWith gasoline.

I lit a match,Set it ablaze.My grief to see…

Set it ablaze,To see my griefAs burning flames.

XI. War After War (Age 58-66)

King fighting kingDefending a queenUsing the bishops toRally the pawns.

When will the kingFight his own fight?

King fighting kingDefending a queenUsing the bishops toRally the pawns.Rally the pawns andSend them to die.

When will the kingFight his own fight?

King fighting kingDefending a queenUsing the bishops toRally the pawns.

When will the kingFight his own fight?

I wish I could tell you,that everything will be alright.

pg 12 pg 5

VII. Steel Rain (Age 30-31)

In the military we call incoming ordnance Steel Rain.

"The first thing you feel is non-belief. This can't be what I am hearing. Youbreak out in gooseflesh immediately, and without thinking, you start running.Technically, you are supposed to drop, face down, to the ground, in an effort toget below flying shrapnel. But when you hear that whistle, with a slight vibrationbeneath it, you can't help but try to run from it. You can feel your heartbeat inyour head, and your breathing and footsteps become all you can hear. Yourun as fast as you can, waiting to hear that explosion, knowing that if you hearit, it means you are still alive. Because if it lands close enough to kill you, youwouldn't even hear it go off. When it does impact, you feel the percussion in yourback and legs, and for a second you stop breathing. Your legs go numb and youbegin to run faster, or maybe it just seems that way. When you reach safety,you immediately turn to watch, and look for others that might still be caught outthere. Finally when the whistling stops, and the last explosion has rocked, andthe sirens wail out the all clear, your heart returns to a normal cadence, and youreturn to work. Business as usual."

In the military we call incoming ordnance "Steel Rain."And believe me, when it rains, it pours.

VIII. Hunting Emmanuel Goldstein (Age 32-43)

They say we've got to catch him,The man who can't be caught.They say that he's a threat,A danger to our liberty.

They show him on TV,For the two-minute hate.We never see that all this huntingIs what keeps us down.

IX. Every Town Has a Wall (Age 44-52)

They say that good fences make good neighbors,I guess you could say the same thing about strong walls.

In medieval days every town had a wall.A wall for keeping certain people out,And protecting those inside.

A wall from which they dropped hot oil,Through things called "murder holes.”

Now we use the wall,For listing the namesOf the dead when they fall,Protecting the wall.

Part Three: Elder

Music i s a weapon of war. Rhythm organizes a soldier ’s t ra ining; song defines an army ’s morale and camarader ie ; Metal l ica can prepare a soldier for batt le. Af ter the war, commemorat ion never hap-pens without a band. Music i s eas i l y co-opted and made to ser ve a pol i t ica l or ideologica l message. But music i s just as eas i l y a vehic le for ref lect ion, engagement, and emotional connect ion, and this i s cer ta inly what i s achieved in Soldier Songs.

I ’ve worked c lose ly with David on the rea l iza-t ion of this piece ’s f inal form, f i rs t in workshop format with New York City Opera as par t of i t s VOX Showcase for new opera , then in i ts f i rs t fu l l y rea l ized staging. In conceptual iz ing the work’s theatr ica l l i fe , David ’s work made me recal l Walter Benjamin’s essay “ The Stor y te l ler : ”

Was i t not not i c eable at the end o f [ Wor ld War I] that men re turned f rom the batt l e f i e ld g rown s i l ent—not r i cher, but poorer in communicable exper ience? … A generat ion that had gone to s chool on a horse-drawn s t r ee tcar now s tood under the open sky in a count r ys ide in which nothing r emained un-changed but the c louds , and beneath the se c louds , in a f i e ld o f f or ce o f de s t ruct ive tor rents and explo s ions , was the t iny, f ragi l e human body.

David ’s piece depicts that sol i tude of a soldier ’s ex-per ience: one i solated bar i tone stands a lone in this piece and ref lects a s ingle vulnerabi l i t y that speaks for generat ions. But more power ful l y, Soldier Songs deals with the cr is i s of communicable exper ience: the soldiers who return from war unable to bear witness to their chaot ic memor ies . The l ibretto of Soldier Songs comes direct l y f rom inter views David did with family and fr iends who ser ved in var iouscombats throughout the last f i f t y years , so ldiers with the courage to te l l their s tor y. Connect ingtheir var ious exper iences , f rom chi ldhood fasc ina-t ion with war to the nightmares that haunt thereturn to c iv i l izat ion, David writes an insistent closed-mouth hum: as if the soldier were a ticking time-bomb, the stories of his experience buried just under the surface and yearning, but unable, to emerge.

But stor y te l l ing i s a communicat ion and re l ies on a recept ive audience. W hat can we, the lucky ones who do not have to exper ience war f i rs t-hand, ex-pect to understand of a soldier ’s exper ience? “ You can’t know what i t was l ike” i s a common refra in of anyone tr y ing to communicate a t raumatic ex-per ience to one who wasn’t there. David grapples with the imposs ibi l i t y of representat ion perhaps most power ful l y in the sound col lage that makes up “Steel Rain”—the chaos and fur y of combat i s presented as an eer i l y quiet soundscape, the voice not only song-less but recorded and distant .

The imposs ibi l i t y of representat ion became a crucia l aspect of this product ion: the Soldier i s largely obscured by a tent in Par t I I , re-emerging blood-soaked and terror-str icken, but without us having seen what he has exper ienced—at most , we see his shadow on the s ides of the tent . Someone we knew from chi ldhood goes off to war and disappears , suffer ing traumas we can’t expect to comprehend eas i l y, and then returns to us , i r revocably changed.

But here i s where “opera , ” or perhaps better, “music-theater ” offers a power ful p lat form to grapple with these problems: i f s imple words a l l too painful l y lack the resonance of exper ience, music t ransforms them into a spat ia l phenom-enon. I f popular media’s images of combat , prom-is ing a “you-are-there” exper ience, only leave the spectator numb, a theatr ica l v isual language can act ivate your imaginat ion and cur ios i t y. An unresolved counterpoint of the musica l and the v isual , that essence of a “music-theater ” event , of fers us a chance to transcend the l imits of our knowledge, making Soldier Songs not just about the soldier ’s exper ience but our own as spectators—a for tunate role but one st i l l laden with responsibi l i t y.

Yu va l S ha r on , September 2012

pg 6 pg 11

I. Real American Heroes (Age 6-12)

I wanna be a “Real American Hero.”I wanna be just like my toy soldiers.Killing all the bad guys with the funny names.

I’m gonna grow up and be a toy soldier.Big bad machine guns makin’ big bad noise.Killing all the bad guys with the funny names.

Good guys, bad guys,Get to choose, who will die.

II. Boom! Bang! Dead! (Rated “T” for Teen) (Age 13-17)

Boom! Bang! Dead!I shot you motherfucker!Boom! Bang! Dead!I shot you in the head!

I shot you in the face,So your mother will not recognize you.Put a gun in to your mouth andBlew your brains out the back of your head.

Good guy, bad guy,Get to choose who will die

If I get shot, I’ll just start over.If I get shot, it doesn’t really hurt any.If I get shot, I’ll play the game again.

Boom! Bang! Dead!I shot that evil-doer...Boom! Bang! Dead!..and earned ten thousand points.

Boom! Bang! Dead!Boom! Bang! Dead!Boom! Bang! Dead!Boom! Bang! Dead!

III. Counting the Days (Age 18-21)

I turned eighteen the other day.I had to sign a paper,That should my country ask me to,I’d go and fight and maybe die.

I signed a paper yesterday,That ‘til I’m twenty-six years old,I could belong to the government,If they call me.

Now that I’m in, I count the days again.But differently, down from the top,Hoping that I make it to one.

Part One: Child

pg 10 pg 7

VI. Hollywood Ending (Age 28-29)

Outside our base,Car bombed, blasted.Thirty-five dead or wounded,Moaning.

A ghastly movie scene,Without the action hero.Just smoke, and bloodFrom the bodies blown to pieces.

Outside our base,Car bomb blasted,Crater making shells,Inside a nice new Mercedes.

I ran out.Grabbed my gun.What can I do,To help the bleeding, the dying?

When I saw the carnage there,I was held with grief,And shock and awe.

Bodies writhingWith missing partsBlood-soaked ground.Smoke-filled air.

I didn’t know what to do.

These people are dying right here at my feet.I feel as if there is just nothing to do.This is not what I wanted.Never what I imagined.

Someone yell “cut!”

Someone yell “cut!”This has all gone terribly wrong,Some one yell “cut!”This movie’s out of control.

This movie’s out of control,Where’s the director?Someone yell “cut!”This whole thing has got to stop.

Someone yell “cut!”This has all gone terribly wrong,Some one yell “cut!”This movie’s out of control.

This movie’s out of control,Where’s the director?Someone yell “cut!”I don’t know what to do.

Someone yell “cut!”This has all gone terribly wrong,Some one yell “cut!”This movie’s out of control.

This movie’s out of control,Where’s the director?Someone yell “cut!”This whole mess has got to end, and now.

IV. Still Life with Tank and iPod (Age 22-24)

When I enter combat, in my Abrams Tank,I like to bring my iPod to keep me entertained.

When I enter combat, in my Abrams Tank,I listen to Metallica to keep me in a rage.

It cooks my blood and makes me feel,Like I can conquer anything.It brings me back to when I was a boy...

A week ago, I was in Jersey….

Push the button, aim on-screen,Shoot the moving Pixels. (Kill ‘em all.)Shoot the moving Pixels. (Not a man.)

When I enter combat, in my Abrams Tank,I like to bring my iPod to keep me entertained.

Kill ‘em all. Not a man.Kill ‘em all. Not a man.

V. Old Friends with Large Weapons (Age 25-27)

Old friends,High school friends,In fatigues,Marching.

Marching in,Mile rows, behindGiant flags,Waving.

Old friendsWith large weapons,Marching inMile rows

Death machines on their shoulders,These soldiers,Black metal,Heavy black machines.

Flat black metal,Death metal,On their backs,My friends.

My dear old friendsWith large weapons.

Part Two: Warrior

pg 8 pg 9