It was the night before New Years Eve when a friend of mine called and said she needed to record a song in my home studio for a song competition that had a submission deadline of 12 Noon on New Years Eve. The rules for all song entries were as follows: 1- The theme of the song had to be environmental, specifically being “GREEN” in urban areas like New York City. 2- The song could not exceed about 3 minutes in duration and the recording needed to be simple and basic, nothing complicated, over arranged or over produced. 3- An mp3 or cassette recording of the song and the written sheet music with lyrics had to be submitted. 4- The deadline for all entries was 12 Noon, New Year’s Eve. She mentioned that there was quite an impressive panel of judges. You would know many of the their names. At this point, my only concern was getting her recording completed in time. She arrived to my place at about 6 PM that evening and we finished by about 10:30. So, she had the rest of the evening and the following morning to complete the submission by the noon deadline. There was also some biographical paperwork to deal with, as you might expect. Needless to say, the thought of me also writing a song for the contest never entered my mind. I went to bed, got up the next morning (New Years Eve morning) at about 8:30, had a cup of coffee, checked emails and pondered the only two things I needed to do before my party that evening which was to clean my apartment and to do my wash before first day of the new year. You know the saying: ”YOU MAKE PLANS and GOD LAUGHS”? Well, this morning wasn’t about to become an exception. At about 10:30 I realized that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t try to write something for the contest. I called my friend and asked her to email me the submission info. She did. Now I had 90 minutes to conceive, write music and lyrics, record and do everything else that was required to submit by the deadline at Noon, just a blink away. High Noon was more like it. At the time, the daunting challenge of completing this task never occurred to me. I forged ahead and got the job done. I woke up on January 1st, knowing that I actually submitted the song within a ½ hour of the deadline, that is, ½ hour late, of course. With the help of a friend, I also managed to find the only laundry place open the night before. I had 25 minutes before they closed. The owner was nice enough to give me few minutes of drying time, as well. After hanging the wash so it would dry by morning, off to my party I went. A perfect New Years Eve celebration: Fireworks in Central Park, several party hops, all concluding with an all night jam session not far from my home. ALL WAS WELL WTH THE WORLD. I returned home 6:30 AM the following morning and got a bit of sleep. As I was playing guitar all night, I didn’t drink too much, so when I woke up the only thing that hurt was my fingers. I was playing mostly steel string acoustic guitar for about 8 hours straight. I normally play nylon or arch top, so my fingers were quite sore. My right hand was a little messy as well from clipping the strings due to the increasing volume levels of the evening. I wasn’t in any mood to even look at my guitar, so I listened to the song I wrote for the competition last year, almost exactly 24 hours ago. It soon became clear that it could use a little revision. I tend to use the term revision instead of correction, as it is a little gentler on the ego. Anyway, over the next few days, I made several revisions, mostly lyrics. A word here, a note there, in the end, I sent the woman who handled the submissions 8 revised recordings and the written music to go with it. I thought for sure I was going to get an email saying “ PLEASE LOSE THIS EMAIL ADDRESS” among other things. Instead, she got back to me at the end of the week and said that she was rather amused by my diligence and that my final revision would be accepted. Needless to say, I was delighted. Unfortunately, the song did not win the competition. I’m not really a singer and I only recently started playing the Ukulele SO!…, you might ask why someone who isn’t a singer and doesn’t really play the Ukulele would record a song singing and playing a Ukulele. Well, … I had a few friends listen to it and they all seem to think that it was amusing and had a funny, tongue and cheek amateur like quality, which they thought worked well for the song. Besides, I do like the color green. It happens to be my favorite color. I like living near a park. I owned a green car and a green house and I do understand the lyrics, especially the part about the color red and green, which is accurately based on the scientific theory of color relating to human brain activity. There’s a reason why traffic lights are RED, YELLOW & GREEN. There is also a reason why you are not likely to see much RED in a hospital room or why PAN AMERICAN AIRLINES (Remember them?) took the color YELLOW out of their airplanes. Did you know that adding a bit of red to black makes black, blacker? Most people would probably say that that the human brain responds more to the color Red, than to Green. Not so. Prior to humans building things everywhere the vast majority of the landmass on earth was … you guessed it… GREEN! BTW… On a more serious note… We humans happened to be blessed with the habitable environment that mother Earth provides for us. It is the only known planet in this solar system that supports life as we know it. However, good air quality and water is becoming increasingly in short supply due to population increases and human negligence. Barring any catastrophic incident, some in the scientific community, world renowned physicist, Stephen Hawking, among them, believe that Earth will only survive another 1,000 years. It’s time that we humans take heed and start thinking seriously about the future of our home, this fragile planet we call Earth. I LIKE GREEN lyrics. I like green, There are places in the city and some spaces, not so pretty but the air is clean, because they're green. I like it green. I like green, When I'm walk- in' in the park, in the dark and I think I hear a scream, I think of green, for Evergreen. (Double meaning: “forever green”) I like green trees and green peas and even green people, if you please! I like it green. I like green, When Martians come to town, they often look around to find green, lots of green. They like it green. I think your dollar(a) should be spent on an arbour(a) not cement, I really mean, I like it green. The neurons in your brain can sometimes cause you pain, but the color they like best is not red, Guess! Oh, yes! Well, it's green. They like it green. I like green trees and green peas and even green people, if you please! I like green. Joe Gianono Bio (Composer/Arranger/Orchestrator/Producer) For over 30 years Joe Gianono has created world-class arrangements and orchestrations, working with the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the Paul Taylor Dance Company, as well a diverse group of recording artists: from hip hop ensemble PM Dawn, to opera greats Bryn Terfel, Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, to a Grammy-winning list of household names: Roger Daltrey, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Yes with Rick Wakeman, Michel Camilo, Chita Rivera and Earth and Wind and Fire’s Philip Bailey. Joe’s film and television work includes orchestrations for “Two Much” (starring Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah and Danny Aiello), “Booty Call” (working with the Back Street Boys, “Love Sydney” (NBC series starring Tony Randall and Swoozie Kurtz) and the popular children’s show “Dora, the Explorer” on Nickelodeon. In recent year’s, Joe is focused on composing music rather than arranging and orchestrating. He is the resident composer of the White Horse Theater Company in New York City. His compositions can be heard as the theme for “The Soup” (E! Entertainment), as well as on “Chelsea Lately” (E!), “Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers” Rangers”(Disney) and “Fatal Honeymoons” (E!) and feature film “Somebody Marry Me”. His musical, "The Hunchback Of Notre Dame" (lyrics by Hal Hackady, libretto by Tony Scully) was staged at the York Theater and his concert music performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (by the Orion Music Ensemble) and published by Subito Music and ACM Records (recent and up coming publications include Trois Jimnopedies for Flute and Guitar, TNT for Chorus and Piano and Elegy for solo Cello and String Orchestra. Joe lectures at the Manhattan School of Music, the Aaron Copland School of Music (Queens College) and The Film Music Network. He is currently composing a children’s musical and is creating a new version of his SPATIAL QUANTUM, a choral piece with orchestra including a pre-recorded celestial soundscape, dedicated to the members of the space shuttle "Challenger". Joe recently returned from Nashville, where he recorded his soon to be released new single called SILLY GIRL recorded by Brandon Maddox (MONSTER TRUCK ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2014) and the Reba McEntire Band. Contrary to what you might think, MOONTAIL is not the alien on the track or in the video, in fact, he is my pet fish, who is quite musical. He keeps things afloat and is the final test of all of my mixes. I'm not kidding. When I do a good mix he hears it and swims around happily in the front part of his fairy large fish tank as if he was dancing, when a mix is not good, he doesn't listen at all and there is no reaction. As a Pisces, it seems only natural that I would have a fish as an associate producer. PS… we LIKE Giuseppi Verdi. Thank You, JOHANNA, ...pharm., blue house, Stone ... !!!