Steve Cuden: On today’s Story Beat

Laurie Berkner: They’ll say, like, if you want to get to the next level, you have to do this thing. I mean, it’s okay to try and stretch, of course, but I feel like I need to bring the thing. People who want to move to whatever that next level is need to bring whatever it is that they, that got them to the first level with them, right? To like, remember, oh, this is, this is where I shine. This is what I’m good at. This is what I can bring to the table. And like, don’t, don’t leave it behind. Like, stay connected to what that is so that you don’t lose the joy of why you started in the first place and you don’t lose the connection to what’s meaningful for you.

Announcer: This is Story Beat with Steve Cuden. A podcast for the creative mind. Storybeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on Story Beat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. My guest today, Laurie Berkner has been recognized by People Magazine as the Queen of Kids Music. Laurie’s a singer, songwriter, performer, author and founder of Two Tomatoes Records. Laurie’s songs have become beloved classics for children worldwide. Her work has received more than 1.7 billion online streams, averaging more than 22 million streams monthly. She’s also amassed more than 578 million YouTube channel views and her CDs and DVDs have sold in the millions. A leader and innovator in children’s music and entertainment for the past quarter century, Laurie has released 17 best selling award winning albums. She was the first recording artist ever to perform in music videos on noggin and Nick Jr. Appearing regularly on Jack’s Big Music Show. She helped develop the Universal Kids short form animated musical preschool series Sing It Laurie. She also created two Laurie Berkner’s Song and Story Kitchen series with Audible Studios, later released as audiobooks. Laurie’s also authored several picture books based on her songs. I’ve read two of those, Monster Boogie and Pillowland. Like her music, I found her writing to be colorful, energetic and entertaining in ways that help children perceive, absorb and live life. She’s also written the music and lyrics for three off Broadway children’s Wanda’s Monster, the Amazing Adventures of Harvey and the Princess and Interstellar Cinderella. And you can catch her in the children’s music documentary Happy and you’d know it, directed by Penny Lane, which is streaming on hbo. Max Laurie maintains a busy nationwide touring schedule, both solo and with the Laurie Ber Band. She’s performed at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Macy’s, Thanksgiving Day Parade and the White House, among many other prestigious venues. Please be sure to stick around at the end of the show for a very special treat. Laurie has generously lent us her wonderfully fun song Everyone’s Demanding Bananas, which you can find on her new Tony, Harry the Chipmunk’s Treasure Hunt. You can also find it on Laurie’s album Walking with the Penguins. So for all those reasons and many more, it’s a tremendous honor and great joy for me to chat on story today with the exceptionally multi talented Laurie Berkner. Laurie, welcome to the show.

Laurie Berkner: Hi. Thank you so much. It’s really an honor and a pleasure to be here.

Steve Cuden: Oh, well, the honor and pleasure is truly mine. Believe that. So let’s go back in history just a bit. When did the bug first bite you to be a writer, a singer, a performer? When did that start for you?

Laurie Berkner: I think on the singing, performing side, very young. I mean, I always, I just found singing and music in general to be kind of life giving for me. Um, just it made me happy. Anything that had anything to do with music was interesting to me. And um, I think when I got into college, maybe earlier in high school, I was doing, I had the lead in a couple of musicals and was just like doing things where I was sort of out in front of people a lot singing. And I realized that, um, it felt a little funny to be playing roles that, that weren’t me. And I mean, I don’t know that I feel that way so much now. I think it could be fun to do other things, but at the time it felt more authentic to just be myself on stage. And I think that is part of what inspired me to start writing.

Steve Cuden: Well, it’s interesting. Many performers that I’ve talked to and many that I’ve known over the years have gone into roles because they didn’t want to be themselves on stage. They wanted to be someone else. You, on the other hand, want to be you. You want to be more authentic.

Laurie Berkner: I did, yeah.

Steve Cuden: You find it easy to play yourself on stage, don’t you?

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, I think that’s kind of. I mean, it’s not something I thought was true about myself, but, um, especially because, I mean, when I first started out, videos were so uncommon. So on stage is. Was one thing. But then over these years, of course now every Every person is a videographer. Every person is a, you know, a filmmaker, a creator in some way with it, just by owning a phone. And so I kind of discovered, without planning to at all, that I felt very comfortable in front of a camera. Not. I mean, I always was like, I prefer audio. I love audio. I love listening to things. I’m not as good visually at visualizing, not as good at visualizing as I am at, like, imagining the way something would sound or imagining maybe what I think something would look like if I listen to what it sounds like rather than looking. So anyway, it was one of those things. I never thought I would end up in a life where I would have to be in front of a camera on stage. Yes. But interestingly, like, they’re. They both ended up being things that I think I’m better at than I thought I was going to be.

Steve Cuden: Well, I find that fascinating because I’ve watched any number of your videos, and, uh, you’re very natural. There’s no sense that it’s, um, difficult for you or a burden or you’re struggling. It’s very natural for you. And you just come across as full of energy and life and, uh, all the things that you’re projecting. Um, so you didn’t start to write till a little later? You didn’t start to write when you were a little kid?

Laurie Berkner: No, no, not at all. In fact, I was kind of terrified of the idea of writing songs for a while. Um, I. I actually. I took a year off in college and lived, uh, with a family in West Africa for a year. And while I was there, I was teaching. I mean, I was doing a lot of things, but one thing I did was also teach guitar to some of the people locally. And, um. And I saw. I was thinking a lot. I was by myself a lot, and I was thinking a lot about music. And I started writing when I was there. Not. Not kids music. Uh, I wasn’t doing anything like that yet, but it felt almost like I didn’t believe I could actually be a musician. So writing was sort of like, what am I doing? Um, and I remember, like, speaking, spending time writing in my journals like, I am a musician. I am a musician. You know, just to convince myself that it would be okay to choose that as a career. I didn’t study it in school or anything like that.

Steve Cuden: Um, so you have no training in this, or did you take training from someone other than in a school?

Laurie Berkner: Not. I mean, a little. I took. I mean, I had instrument lessons growing up. Um, I started guitar. It was My last instrument actually, I started that when I was um, 17 and I kind of self taught.

Steve Cuden: Well that’s amazing.

Laurie Berkner: And I, I did go to a night school class and like take group guitar lessons for six weeks and then I had, I had a few um, lessons over the years, but I mostly am self taught with that. So. Yeah, same. I mean, I kind of wish I knew more music theory actually than I do, but I had wonderful music teachers in high school and middle school and um, yeah, it ended up being something that I kind of worked on myself more than got taught to do.

Steve Cuden: I’m not sure you need much more theory. You’re. The work that you do is quite specific, but the breadth of it, the kinds of songs, they’re not all cookie cutter. Like one after the other is the same. They’re all over the map. Which is uh, a testament to. You don’t need theory training. It kind of reminds me, you know, the story about Mario Puzo and the Godfather. He thought he needed to learn how to write screenplays because he was a novelist and he’d already written the Godfather with Francis, uh, Coppola. And so when he went to a book to learn how to write screenplays, the book said see the Godfather. So that’s what you’re kind of reminding me of right now. You could probably teach what you know and it would be excellent. So, you know, that’s amazing when someone teaches themselves music. I, I’m in the music business somewhat, but uh, I’ve never been able to play anything or read music. I do it all by ear, so I find that quite fascinating. On your website it says that your mission is to use our creativity to make things we are proud of for kids, families and every inner child to have great experiences and connect more to themselves, their feelings and others. How do you go about doing that? What is, how do you make that happen?

Laurie Berkner: Well, first of all, thank you for noticing the mission statement on my website because that I, we. That was, that was the culmination of a lot of thought and no doubt discussion and like work with the people who are who I work within my company and like really trying to focus in on what is it that we are really trying to do in the world. And um, and I feel like I truly try to do all of those things with every project. So um, like make something I’m proud of. Help people connect to themselves, each other, their feelings, um, working to create things that create positivity in people that are any age. Right. So an inner child of anyone. It doesn’t have to just be children. Although I think about children most of the time when I’m writing. But I hope that what I create can bring joy to anyone who listens to it. So. Or just help bring up feelings for them or help them feel closer to somebody else or themselves. And, and there are lots of ways to do that either, you know, charitably, creatively in my workplace, in a concert, when I’m recording something, when I’m writing something, kind of I feel like in every aspect of what I do, you

Steve Cuden: know, I’m sitting here in Pittsburgh, the home of Mr. Rogers. And you kind of remind me of Mr. Rogers in a large way. I mean you’re different than him, but you remind me of him in that your, your mission is to help children become people. And uh, and that’s what’s obvious in what you do and the songs that you produce. Um, what made you dedicate yourself to preschool kids? How did that happen?

Laurie Berkner: So about a year out of college, um, after doing some odd jobs, I got a job as a part time music specialist at ah, at a preschool in uh, in Manhattan. And um, and then eventually that it was at Rockefeller University and they expanded and added an infant and child center. So so over some years I was working with babies up through six year olds as their music teacher and I didn’t have any experience doing it. So I learned a lot on the job. And um, basically I was just awful when I started. I literally could not keep the kids like interested for more than five minutes. They would get up and I was in this huge multi purpose room and they would just like one kid would get up and run to one end of the room and I would go and try and wrangle them back. And by the time I got that kid back the rest of the kids had run to the other side of the room laughing. And I had to beg the classroom teachers to come in to make sure that I could actually like spend even a quarter of the class getting the kids to do any music. So eventually I went and I, I observed my predecessor, her name is Ruth Alperson and she used a method called Dalcro’s Eurythmics, which is basically in a simple way it’s that we would use movement to help express and share and teach music to kids or anybody. But the um, Dalcro’s was I think focused more on kids if I recall correctly. So anyway I, I watched her and with my jaw on the floor like she uh, had these three year olds like won’t you please stand up? And they Would just, like, stand up, and then won’t you please sit down? And they would sit down. And she’s standing. She’s behind the piano. I’m like, destro, desperately running around after them with my guitar. And I had tried with the piano at first. I was like, well, there’s no way this is working. So, um, I went up to her afterwards and I said, okay, first of all, you’re a magician. How did you do that? How do you get them to be interested in what you’re doing? They know these kids don’t want to listen to me at all. And she was like, it’s because you talk too much. And, I mean, she had never seen me in a classroom, but she was like, I can tell you, you need to put it in the music. I was like, oh, that became. Sing it. Don’t say it to me. It was like, if I had something that I wanted to communicate to them or that I wanted the kids to do, I had to put it in a song. So I, uh, tried to find songs that did that originally and struggled. I mean, there are songs that do that, but it was harder to find them, I realized, eventually, than it was for me to write them myself. So, um, being in a classroom, uh, I’ll tell you, this is a. Hopefully a quick story. But what happened to make that transition was that one day I had tried every song that I had found at the library, and this group of kids was just like, meh, boring baby song. We hate this. This is so dumb. Why are we here? Like, just so unhappy being in the room with me. And. And I just remember finally saying, well, what do you want to sing about if you don’t want these songs? And one kid yelled, dinosaurs. And then the whole room erupted. They were like, yeah, dinosaurs. And I thought, okay, I’m a songwriter. Get up. Start. Get everybody up. Start marching. We’re going to be dinosaurs. And I was like, minor key. Okay. We are the dinosaur. I mean, this is how I came up with the wor. What do you think of that? We make the earth flat. Like, I mean, I was just making stuff up. I had a friend who used to say that all the time. And I was like, well, that’ll be funny. So, I mean. I mean. And she used to say, what do you think of that? And then we make the earth flat seem like it rhymed. And they were big and they stomped. And that’s become a whole other thing because people accuse me of being a flat earther. And I was like, no, I’m just rhyming. So anyway, the point was just that I did that and they loved it. And when they started to get out of hand, I remembered what Ruth said, put it in the music. So I. I’d be like, we’re marching, we’re dinosaurs. Uh, stop and eat some food on the ground. And they would just all stop being crazy. And they pretend to eat some food on the ground. Like they just fell to the ground and did it when it was in the song. So the whole song I built basically like that. And it was pretty much. I think it was the first song I ever wrote, um, for kids. And I thought, okay, this, this is way better. Because when they came back, the same group came back the next time I.

Steve Cuden: That week.

Laurie Berkner: They all were begging me for that song. And I thought, okay, this is what I have to start doing.

Steve Cuden: And almost all of your videos that I’ve seen have kids following what you’re saying to do in the songs. That’s a. Ah, they’re very active. Your videos are very active. It’s not just you singing into the camera. There’s a lot of motion and action going on. Um, what is the most challenging thing that you have to overcome to create these songs? What is it coming up with subject matter or tone or what? What’s the most challenging thing for you?

Laurie Berkner: I think the most challenging thing is not to rewrite a song I’ve already written. When I have a few hundred songs.

Steve Cuden: Sure.

Laurie Berkner: And every once in a while, like, especially with the band, they’ll be like, oh, this sounds a little like that. I’m like, oh, darn it.

Steve Cuden: You’ve got people who can bust you on that.

Speaker C: Huh?

Steve Cuden: Huh?

Laurie Berkner: Yes. Yeah, I actually. I remember years. My third album is called Victor Vito, and the first song on it is Victor Vito. And the last song on it is Good Night. Years later, I went back and listened because it was 1999. I put that album out and I listened to those two songs and I realized that they actually had, like, really similar chord progressions in them. They were in different keys, but, like, it was kind of the same. They’re completely, completely different sounding songs. But they were kind of the same chord progression. I was like, did I just rewrite Victor Vito and turn it into a lullaby? Like, I don’t know what I was thinking. I just. I didn’t even notice. But, um, that kind of comes back to haunt me a lot of the time.

Steve Cuden: I personally think as the creator, you are entitled to make things that are not dissimilar to other things you’ve made. They don’t all have to be each and every one unique.

Laurie Berkner: And.

Steve Cuden: And, in fact, if you listen to all the great composers and you look at all the great painters and all the great writers, they do riff on their own stuff, because that becomes your style. It becomes your identity, your voice.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah. Yeah. Especially painters. That’s interesting. Like, being almost in, like, I, um, think made me think immediately of, like, oh, Picasso’s Blue Period. It’s like, when you.

Steve Cuden: At least when I listen to Mozart, I know it’s Mozart. Doesn’t matter what it is.

Laurie Berkner: It’s true.

Steve Cuden: Right?

Laurie Berkner: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: So. So that’s your voice, that’s your style, and. And you hit on it fairly early, and now you look back years later and you go, wait a minute. I’m imitating myself. That’s okay. I think I’m all for that. You know, as long as it’s. You’re not literally copying it note for note. Um, so which do you enjoy more at this point? Writing it or performing it?

Laurie Berkner: I like being done. I mean.

Speaker C: Right.

Laurie Berkner: It’s like. Because the process of writing is a real. It’s. There’s so such an adrenaline rush when something feels like it’s working, and it’s such a, uh, depressing, like, struggle when it’s not. Right.

Steve Cuden: You sound just like a writer, Laurie. That’s exactly what writing is. It’s when it’s working and you’re in the zone. Oh, wow. The world is a great thing. And when it’s not and you can’t figure it out, you just want to bang your head on the wall.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Laurie Berkner: I mean, similarly, I do think that performing can be, obviously, you can, you know, bomb. But at this point, I know that so many of the people coming to a show are coming because they have songs they want to hear, and I’m very happy to sing them for them, so. And I enjoy. I still enjoy doing them. I can’t. I mean, I don’t. I don’t know why I still enjoy doing it. Like, you know, the same songs over and over, but I actually really do. I’m like, oh, this one.

Speaker C: Yay.

Steve Cuden: It’s a great question that I do, uh, ask some performers like you. Do you get bored of performing the same song over and over and you’re

Laurie Berkner: saying, no, no, I don’t. I don’t. And I am always kind of shocked at that. But also, I do. I mean, at this point, I have had to rotate out some of the biggest hits just to get in some new songs, and I think it’s important to do some of the new songs, because there are some families that come over and over and over to the shows. And, um, and also I want to give them some time, some air time, you know, to kind of become the new hits. And then there are also new hits that push the old ones out. I mean, I try hard to get as many in as I can, but I have to do a lot of medleys now.

Steve Cuden: Well, you have to promote your new work unless you stop writing new work, but you still write. So you need to figure out how to push that out into the world. At the same time, it is a dilemma. It’s a dilemma for folks like you.

Laurie Berkner: There’s so many more people watching on YouTube than are coming to my concerts, Even when my concerts are selling out, you know, so it’s sort of like, do I have to play the new ones at the concerts in order to promote them?

Speaker C: Maybe?

Laurie Berkner: I mean, it’s definitely sharing them with people who are, um, loyal fans and really interested. So to me, it’s more like. It feels special, I think, to people to come to a show and feel like when I say I have never performed this before or I haven’t even released this yet, you know, that kind of thing, I think that is a, uh, gift that both I can give to them by sharing it and that they’re giving to me by actually, like, giving me feedback about it. So all those things are important. And when I don’t play a song in front of kids, I don’t know how they are going to interact with it. And that is so important.

Steve Cuden: It’s impossible for you to know what the actual momentary feedback is when it’s on YouTube or on an audio that they’re listening to at home. You don’t know what they’re reacting, but when you’ve got an audience, you really get that immediate feedback, you know? What is it that you hope that parents will like about your work in order to give it their approval to bring their kids to concerts or to buy them, um, videos and so on? What is it you hope the parents will take from it?

Laurie Berkner: Um, there are a lot of things, I mean, I hope in terms of their kids that the kid is just loving it, like, just enjoying it, hopefully also moving m. I mean, not every single song I write, but maybe 75, 80% of the songs I write are they’re our movements built in. And that’s part of what the song is there for, is to help kids, like, be active and interact with the song itself. Um, I hope that they see that the kids feel like the music belongs to them. That it was really specifically made for them and that they love that and that they, um, are getting a lot out of it and maybe also learning something that they want their kids to learn. Whether that’s a social, emotional thing about who they are or what they want to be or what they feel, but. Or maybe it’s a more like, specifically educational thing. Um, and then as for the parents, like, I hope that they also like the music enough to actually want to go to the concert with their kids, you know, because that’s. They have to go too.

Steve Cuden: That’s usually the big complaint about parents and taking their kids to a movie or to whatever, that they’re going to be bored. So part of it is, how do you bridge that chasm between a preschool kid enjoying something and a parent enjoying it? Also, I was going to say that that must be what works ultimately for you, is that you are able to give something to. Both contingencies.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, I mean, I definitely try. I think one aspect is that when I write the music, I think a lot about, like, would I want to listen to this music? You know, would this drive me crazy? Or would this be. Is there enough interest in this? I mean, it kind of has to be both because some parents don’t feel very musical. And so sometimes actually making a song more simple, uh, draws, uh, the parents in as well, because then they can also participate and they feel like they are doing something that allows them to connect more with their kids.

Steve Cuden: I’ve not listened to a single song of yours that isn’t fun. Every one of them is fun. So, you know, they’re not dour. They’re not gloomy. They’re not looking at the world as if it’s, you know, everything’s gonna dry up and disappear tomorrow. Uh, it’s not. The Lion King, where you’re. You’ve got scar has taken over the community. You have nothing like that. It’s all upbeat and fun. That, I assume is part of the appeal to both the parents and the kids.

Laurie Berkner: I think so, yeah. And, I mean, I do write some songs that are less energetic and more, um, kind of about inner. Just thinking. Thinking a little bit more inwardly and, um.

Steve Cuden: But even those are fun. They’re not. They’re not boring. That’s good.

Laurie Berkner: That’s nice to hear.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Laurie Berkner: So, I mean, that’s. That is. The hope is that they will. They’ll connect with it as well. I mean, I’ve had some interesting stories over the years where, like, kind of towards the beginning of my writing I wrote a song called I’m Not Perfect, which I wrote for myself because I had this uh, was way before um, even like digital Planners. It was like I had a book that had everything in it and I was doing kids birthday parties and, and I lost it. I left it on the bus. And it had every phone number and every address of like all of the birthday parties I had booked in the next, you know, three months or whatever. And I just, I couldn’t imagine like, was I gonna just not show up at some, you know, four year old’s very important birthday celebration and like, okay, Lori Bergner just never came, you know, because I couldn’t reach them and I, I was like weeping and this song came out of me and, and I thought, oh, I, uh. It felt very young. Like I felt super young. The way that I felt having lost that. Like, I just felt really like a child who did something that I, you know, wished I hadn’t done and, and having to like, still accept myself. And I remember for years, especially when that was a video that was on TV for like before YouTube was a thing where parents were seeing it even though it was on a kid’s channel that um, I would get these um, notes from parents that were like, I, I lost my job, I screwed up something in my family. I struggle to accept myself sometimes. And I like listened to your song I’m Not Perfect. And it made me feel like I was okay, you know. So sometimes beyond the music, there is this universal sense of a certain message that I think many things we want to feel about ourselves that we hope start when we’re little, but often don’t and that we still want to feel when we get older. And if, if, if a song can kind of find its way to that feeling or that, that hope or whatever it is that that feels, you know, still really important as an adult. I think it’s another way to connect.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s sort of, you know, life gets in the way frequently as you age, um, and things happen and makes. Can make it challenging to live a life. And so I think music is one of the things that helps draw people back into feeling good about themselves. And that’s why music is so very popular. So you write virtually everything that you sing. Have you ever produced anything that was someone else’s work?

Laurie Berkner: Uh, yes, I have produced, um, another kids songwriter, some of her songs. Um, but I’m not singing it.

Steve Cuden: No, Diana Fox is singing it.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, it was her, her music. So I was in the studio with her and like helping and produced Some of her songs, um, for. In terms of me singing other people’s songs, I sing on other people’s songs. Usually more like in a duet sense. And I have recorded some public domain songs or.

Speaker C: Uh.

Laurie Berkner: When I first started my first album, the first half was public domain because I was like, no one’s gonna listen to my songs. They don’t know what. They’ll look at the back of this cassette and be like, what is that? You know, I know a chicken. What’s that?

Steve Cuden: Have you ever been more wrong about anything?

Speaker C: Right.

Laurie Berkner: I guess that’s a good point.

Steve Cuden: It’s. That’s a good thing to be wrong about, I gotta tell you.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, that is so true.

Steve Cuden: So. So. So you say you’ve written several hundred songs. You’ve probably written, I’m assuming, songs that have never been produced, that you didn’t think they were up to your standards. I assume, yes.

Laurie Berkner: I do a lot of, like, journaling and so I will write ideas and sometimes I’ll go back and find a page and like, oh, I wrote a whole song here. So, yes, I think there are, uh. There are tons of ideas songs that I’ve started, but not that I actually. I don’t think there’s anything that I’ve. Very few that I’ve, like, completed, but. And then just didn’t go ahead and record it anyway.

Steve Cuden: That’s. That’s actually amazing because most people who are songwriters that I know, they have a whole trunk full of songs that never. They just said, nope, doesn’t work. But you’re saying that you work on yours till they’re right for you. And I think that there’s a lesson in there for anyone listening who wants to do what you do or to be a songwriter, uh, you know, for adults or whatever, that you can continue to work on things until you get them the way you want. And that’s what you’re saying.

Laurie Berkner: That was a huge learning for me. And I remember the day I realized that, like, it was actually. And it was pretty early on, right? I had. It was around when I was working on some songs that ended up on my second album. And I. That. So it was late 90s, and I was playing a song called Buzz Buzz Bumblebee Buzz Buzz, which is. Has become a very big hit. Big hit. Right. So I was. I. I had. Had written a different song for an adult. Adult quote song for, um, about someone that I had been in a relationship with and used similar chords. And I was like, playing around with it. And I remember. I don’t know what the line was. But one of the lines. It just. I sat on the bed and I started playing it, and this whole bumblebee song came out with these chords. And I was like, oh, this is cool. But I hate this one line. Oh, God, how am I ever gonna sing that? I don’t want to do that. And then I thought, but that’s what came out, so I guess that’s what the song is. And then some little voice in me was like, wait a minute. You’re writing this song. You could do whatever you want. Yeah, that’s. Change that damn line. Like, nobody wants to hear a line that you don’t want to sing. And I was like, oh, oh, yeah, I’m going to change it. And it was hard because the other way had just, like, felt like it was the right thing. It was Just kept coming out that way. I was like, nope, I don’t. I don’t want to sing that. Nope. Nope. And then now I can’t remember it anymore. So that.

Steve Cuden: Do you feel like a lot of writers, that, uh, you’re not actually doing it? It’s flowing through you from somewhere else in the universe or wherever?

Laurie Berkner: I do feel like that a lot. And. And, I mean, I think it could be flowing from a lot of places, but I do have a sense of, like, sometimes there are just, like, things in the ether and I get lucky and I open up and, like, I allow it to be the thing that I am tuning into. And, um, I feel pretty, you know, honored when that happens.

Steve Cuden: You’re the conduit for it. Yep. It just flows through you. Uh, um, where do your ideas come from? Are they also flowing through you from elsewhere? Or do you. Are you actively seeking ideas? Like, you’re walking through a grocery store and an idea hits you because you’re looking at a product or something like that.

Laurie Berkner: I listen a lot to what kids say.

Steve Cuden: M. Which is going back to when you were a teacher and you were listening to what they wanted, right?

Laurie Berkner: Yeah. And then once I stopped seeing. So, like, you know, I was at one point seeing over 200 kids a week in different schools as I expanded from the same. The one place I worked, and then I stopped because I was making albums and performing, but suddenly I had no kids to, like, listen to anymore or bounce things off of. So I started. Like, I would get on the bus as kids got out of school. I would go to playgrounds and be that weirdo sitting on the bench.

Steve Cuden: Goodness.

Laurie Berkner: By myself.

Steve Cuden: That might be dangerous in some places.

Laurie Berkner: I know I probably looked okay. I hope Nobody ever kicked me out. But I mean, even now, just like friends who have kid. Young kids, anytime I’m around a young kid, uh, they just cannot help it. But they are so brilliant at, like, coming up with incredible ideas. I mean, some of it is my own silliness and sometimes it’s me being silly with kids that brings out some of the ideas. And I think, oh, this was fun. I could, I could turn this into a song. But I have to say, a lot of like, one. One. One story that I love to tell is that, um, one of my more famous songs is the Goldfish song, which is. Wait a minute, we’re fish. We don’t take showers, ride bicycles, whatever, because the. The fish are swimming. And then I have them do these things that fish aren’t supposed. Supposed to do. And, um, I wrote that song originally just because for the movement, it was like, let’s go swimming. Okay. This is a way they can move by running and moving their. Or they can move around on the floor on their stomachs, like different ways of actually doing gross motor movement for kids. And, uh, I was like, it’s fine. The song’s fine. And the fish go to sleep and when they wake up, they do something silly. So I remember singing it with this group at a daycare, um, on, um, the Upper west side of Manhattan. It was a ymca. Anyway, I just remember I was in there and this two and a half year old, like I said, you know, when they woke up, they rode their bicycles. And she was riding her bike. And at the end of it, she just. She had been on her back and she was moving her legs like she was biking in the air. Because I had the kids all doing that. And she just popped up and she went, wait a minute, we’re fish. We don’t ride bicycles. And I was like, you just.

Speaker C: This.

Laurie Berkner: That is what this song was missing.

Speaker C: That.

Laurie Berkner: That is what this song is about. And it just blew my mind. And that. I, uh, mean, she’s. She’s. I think she’s the reason that I’ve done so well. Probably 30 now, and you know, better

Steve Cuden: than most, uh, as the cliche is out of the mouth of babes, right there it is absolutely.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah. It was quite, quite incredible. I mean, it was like all the bells went off.

Steve Cuden: Okay, so let’s talk about how this comes together. You have an idea, you have an epiphany of some kind. Somebody makes a suggestion, something just occurs to you, and you, uh, sit down and start to work on chord structure and what the words are going to be and so on. What ultimately then, as you continue to work on it, what makes a good song good?

Laurie Berkner: I mean, thinking, even just think about, like, pop music. People always talk about having a hook. So for young kids, the hook can be a lot of different things. It can be the rhythm, it can be the melody, it can be a word, it can be that there is what the interactive element is like. That’s usually what I’m thinking about the most, is what is interactive about this? Are we doing call and response? Are there clear hand motions? Um, or is there some, like, movement that I’m telling them to do? Are they acting out a story? There’s so many different ways that you can involve kids in the music itself that makes them feel totally immersed in it. And I think when they feel that way, whatever the thing is that draws them in that makes it feel like, oh, I. I’m supposed to be part of this music, then I think it’s a good song. I mean, and then if it’s not annoying, that helps too.

Steve Cuden: Well. And you, uh, you run that risk in so often because your songs purposefully are repetitive, and they’re repetitive, so kids will get into it. I totally understand what you’re doing. And that’s really a tightrope that you walk, I assume, most of the time when you start to repeat, is this going to get boring? And I guess so far, no. The answer is no. You’re hitting on those cylinders. Do you find it, um, that repetition is something that you have to keep working on to get right, or how

Laurie Berkner: does that work that I have to work on? The repetition. You mean, like how I’m repeating things?

Steve Cuden: Yeah. So you clearly, um, purposefully repeat. And, uh, it’s always. I shouldn’t say always, but most of the time that I’ve noticed, it’s during action. It’s stand up or move or it’s some movement that you’ve got kids doing. Which, by the way, I think is truly the secret to your total success, is that you have those kids involved because you have them doing things. They’re not passive listeners. They’re active participants. That’s huge. That’s a huge thing. But when you’re thinking about creating a song and you know you’re going to repeat, are you thinking about, how do we. How do I write this so that it’s not, um, dull or just. You’re just repeating to repeat that it has a thrust and a drive and a purpose?

Laurie Berkner: You know, honestly, it’s more like an instinct. Like, I think I’m thinking About what should ha. What. Okay, I’ve just done this part. What should be happening now? Like, what feels like the right thing to do next?

Speaker C: Huh?

Laurie Berkner: Has it been too long since we did that other thing? Do we need to go? Like, I don’t want them to forget how to. Like, that was part of this song. Okay. I need to come back. I mean, it’s not so different from like verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus. You know, like thinking kind of traditional rock and roll or pop style, um, songs.

Speaker C: Um.

Laurie Berkner: But in my head it’s like, have I said this enough? Have I said it too much? But it’s just like, it’s often a feel thing.

Steve Cuden: Um, I think that’s what makes you an artist.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, I guess so. I mean, I’m sure that if AI, like, and I’m sure it probably has. If it were to dissect all of my songs, it would find a pattern that I am not. Or it would find maybe multiple patterns that I, you know, kind of come back to that I’m not totally aware of what they are. I. I also. I was. I was diagnosed with, uh, ADHD as an adult. And I realized, like, I. That I can see that when I’m writing every time. And maybe this is also part of why I don’t mind singing my songs over and over every single time I come to write a song. It feels kind of like the first time I’m doing it. Like, I don’t. I. It’s not that I don’t believe I can do it because I know I have done it before. But when I sit down, I’m like, what. Where do I. What. I mean, I have. Maybe I have this one idea about a, ah, an animal or an action or a. A, um. Funny thing that somebody said. Um. And like, I. I try to build out from there, but I don’t think, like, I don’t think verse, chorus, verse, chorus. I think I did a piece. Now I need something else here. And then how does that fit with. And then. Oh, should I just repeat that other thing? Because I feel like I haven’t heard that in enough time, you know? And then a lot of times it does turn into a more traditional shape, but sometimes not. And I remember sometimes, like one bass player who played in the fee was like, like, you don’t write enough bridges. And I was like, I don’t. I don’t feel like it needs it. Like, it’s just whatever. Yeah. Or like the Goldfish song. I remember thinking about that. I was like, it’s like three or four different parts, but that’s what tells the story the best, you know? And just in that song, that’s just how it came out. And sometimes I get lost in that song when I’m doing it live because I’m like, what. Where’s the verse in the chorus? What’s going on here? It’s just. I don’t know. Sometimes I think, yeah, uh, I could be completely wrong.

Steve Cuden: But I think preschool kids don’t need that modulation. They don’t need it to go to a different change or they don’t need the bridge. Adults do, because adults get bored much more easily than a kid will if they’re engaged. I think kids get bored quite easily, but not when they’re engaged. An adult starts thinking about other things, and they get lost in other things.

Laurie Berkner: Right, right. So they’re looking for something else that isn’t necessarily going to make it the best kids song. And I think that is what I am always looking for.

Steve Cuden: You’re the second person I’ve interviewed on this podcast who, as an adult, discovered they had ADHD and works on kids stuff.

Laurie Berkner: Ooh, interesting.

Steve Cuden: And in fact, it’s the director of the Netflix hit During COVID called Animal Crackers, if you remember that he created that and directed it. And he. Who’s a friend of mine, Scott Christian Sava, he, uh, discovered as an adult that he has adhd.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, in a way, it made me accept a lot of things that I was very critical of in myself for a long time. Um, it was helpful in that way because it was these ways of kind of interacting with the world and with how I write and different things that I do were kind of textbook adhd, but to me, seemed like, I don’t. Must. I must not know how to do things, because it’s not how other people do it. And they seem to have a much easier time with things that I don’t. And. And vice versa. I mean, I find it very easy to just be like, oh, let’s just make up a song, you know? But that’s. I think part of that is that my brain bounces around a lot, and so I make these kind of strange connections. Like, I mean, well, I’m gonna jump to something right now, which is that you mentioned everyone’s demanding bananas. That was. Someone was. I was on a zoom call with someone whose kids were, like, chasing after her while she was trying to talk to me, asking her for her for bananas. And she just looked into the camera and went, everyone’s demanding bananas. I don’t know what’s going on. And I was like, like, just. It just went. It just turned into a song in my head. Like, immediately everyone’s demanding, bananas. I don’t know what’s going on, you know, like, uh.

Steve Cuden: Ah.

Laurie Berkner: Very sort of almost theatrical in the way that she said it. It sounded that way in my head, and it blew. Blossomed into a whole song. But I think I wouldn’t. If my brain didn’t work like this, I don’t think I would make those kinds of connections like that.

Steve Cuden: I think that this is a super important lesson for anyone out there, listening, thinking that they’re different.

Speaker C: And.

Steve Cuden: And for that reason alone, they can’t do what you’re talking about, writing, performing, and so on. Because they’re different. They’re not doing it like everyone else. Well, guess what, kids? That is, in fact, what makes you special. And so Laurie, uh, is a good example of, you know, figured out that there’s something not quite, I guess, what we would call in the norm, whatever the heck that is. Um, that you’re outside of that norm again, whatever that is. Um, and, uh, that is what separates you from everyone else and makes you unique. I don’t think anyone who’s different should think I can’t do anything because I’m different. No, that’s what makes you special. Correct me if I’m wrong. For preschoolers, and then slightly older than preschoolers, it becomes an issue when they have peer pressure on them to be like everybody else, right?

Laurie Berkner: I think so, yeah. I mean, I see that a lot. Um, and it happens really early. Uh, like some. Just by the time kids are five or six, I see a lot of. They’ve just learned to make friends, usually around four. And then suddenly, who gets the friend and why? And what makes you somebody who is attractive as a friend becomes very, very important. And, um, I do. I mean, I do think from my own. Just anecdotally, this is just my personal experience. What you’re saying is really true that I had a, uh. I definitely have always had a struggle of, like, okay, I feel a little different from other people. And I am able to. I’ve been able to do some things that a lot of people haven’t been able to do, like turn my music into a career, be able to connect with kids in this way. And like, so accepting that it’s okay to be, uh, who I am and a different person, even if maybe sometimes that meant that I maybe didn’t have as many friends or did have different kinds of friends or whatever, that those were all you Know, long time learning, long time learning.

Steve Cuden: But look at how productive you’ve been. You’ve been extraordinarily productive and creative and uh, put stuff out into the world that people like and admire and are willing to give you money for.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, that’s a good thing.

Steve Cuden: Let’s talk about how you perform for a moment because I’m always curious about how performers do what they do. Um, do you go through any sort of special performance preparation before you go on stage or before you start to sing in a video?

Laurie Berkner: So I’d never formally had um, uh, music lessons like I said really, except kind of in school and some instruments and stuff. But I started taking voice lessons after I recorded, I think my first or second album because I noticed that I, I couldn’t sing up high anymore like I had been able to in high school. And I, I think it’s because I was doing, I was starting to do a lot of kids music and I was singing a lot of like we are, ah, the dinosaurs, like all down here. So anyway, ah, I, I have been working with the same um, voice teacher for about 20 years and she’s, she’s incredible. And so I, I have a vocal full like vocal warm ups that I do. I try to do them every day but I absolutely do them before I go on stage. I do yoga and stretching and different kinds of PT to work on anything that doesn’t feel good in my body because my shows are very like I’m jumping, I’m lying down while I’m playing guitar. I’m like running around the stage while I’m singing. And it’s very physical performance. So if I am not, and if I haven’t slept enough, it’s not good.

Steve Cuden: You get a workout when you perform, don’t you?

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, yeah. And I have like, I don’t eat, you know, I don’t eat right before I go out. And when I’m performing with anybody else, we always like take a moment and like and, and say out loud or if I’m by myself, I have someone actually say to me, remember that this is because you love it. This is for the kids. There are going to be new people out there. Your, your job is to make the space feel safe and help everybody be the best that they can be and have fun. Like those are the things, those are the things I want to hear before I go out on stage and remember, like, this is because we’re all here to have a good time too.

Steve Cuden: Why do you think you need to remind yourself of that? What do you Think that you would forget.

Laurie Berkner: Because I get nervous. Yeah, I, you know, because I have a mo. You know, just like what we were saying before about like, oh, uh, am I different? Am I okay? It’s like I want most. A lot of people feel the need to be acceptable and be accepted. And I’m someone who, uh. Part of, I think why I like to be on stage is that it makes me feel like I am doing something that people like and is acceptable. But I always have a little feeling inside of me, like, is it. Are they not going to like it today? Am I going to forget the words? Am I going to play a wrong chord? Um, you know, which. All these things happen all the time, but it does, you know, if I remember that overall the point is to connect with everybody and make music together and hopefully bring a lot of pleasure to kids and their families like that. And for me to have fun while I’m doing it, then I can. Like, if I mess up, I don’t feel as much. I feel embarrassed. But I am not so embarrassed that I can’t make a joke about it or turn it into something that’s more fun because that is what I am there to do.

Steve Cuden: I think that, as is a well known cliche, that the nerves that you have mean that you actually care about what you’re doing and you want to put on a good show, you don’t want to put on a mediocre show. But I think, think anybody that’s thinking about being a performer, like you, um, should realize that those nerves don’t ever really go fully away. That if you care about your work, you’re going to continue to have nerves. So then what do you do to tamp down the nerves? Is it somebody telling you that or is it. Do you do something else that helps?

Laurie Berkner: I really do have someone like, read those things to me. And then, um, and I. And there they also say like, like, take a deep breath, you know, and. And I jump, uh, backstage. Like, it feels very grounding to me to like feel the, the floor, the earth beneath my feet and like that I am a solid. I’m a person. I am just a person, right? Like I’m a person going out there doing the best I can do and trying to do something that hopefully we all have fun doing. So it’s like, boom. Like that’s often the last thing I’ll do before I start. Just listen. To hear somebody announce me is like, I’ll jump. And, um, all those things help.

Steve Cuden: And this is someone who, uh, in your case has Performed hundreds and hundreds of times in front of crowds. So it’s not like that ever changes where you suddenly go, oh, I’ve got it. I can just walk out and wing it. No, you actually think about it, and you have to go through a ritual in order to bring yourself to that performance. Let’s talk for a moment about your books. Um, how many books have you published at this point?

Laurie Berkner: Uh, six.

Steve Cuden: Are they all based on songs or.

Laurie Berkner: They’re all. They’re all songs. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: They’re all based on something else.

Laurie Berkner: No, they’re all. I mean, they’re all. They’re actually the lyrics to my songs. So we have. There’s sometimes little stories visually, or little things that get added. But basically me, quote, writing a book is having written a song.

Steve Cuden: Do you think that your ADHD has contributed to the fact that both your books and your videos are so visually oriented and so full of, um, animation and color and life? They’re not the least bit. They’re not passive at all. There’s real energy in the books. So is that. Do you think that’s partly from the adhd or is that something else?

Speaker C: Maybe.

Laurie Berkner: I mean, those things are appealing to me personally, and what I remembered also being appealing to me as a kid. So, yes. Um, I also think that they’re like that. Like, I don’t make them. Other people do those drawings or do the editing and do the. You know, I get to watch it and say, I like this. I don’t like that. You know? So, um. Which. Because I just remember at the beginning of this conversation, I was saying I’m not so good at visualizing things, but I do know what I like when I see it.

Steve Cuden: As opposed to, you’re not the. The, uh. The artist that’s creating the image.

Laurie Berkner: Exactly.

Steve Cuden: But you know what? Images work for you.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: You can recognize something. Go, no, that’s not right. But, yes, that’s. That’s right on.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah. Although, I have to say, I, um. I also changed those. I mean, some things are. I think, are consistent through. Maybe it’s not. Maybe things don’t change that much. I was thinking more about, like, my clothes, because I’m really bad at picking out my own clothes. But, uh, other people are like this. Try this. And I say, ah, uh, that’s too scary. Am I gonna wear that? And they’re like, yeah, it’ll be great. And I say, okay. And then I wear it. I’m like, God, I love that. Now, that’s me. So it’s. It’s very like, what I’m. Because what I wear is also sometimes kind of important in the video because there’s not a whole lot going on sometimes besides kids and colors and, you know. So anyway, in that. That part of it, I have to be a little more, um. I have to be more open.

Steve Cuden: But it’s not blank stage. It’s you and kids bouncing around with usually very fanciful animation or stuff behind you that’s fanciful. It’s not boring or dull at all. Um, and when the two books that I read being, uh, Monster Boogie and Pillowland, they’re very different looks to them. They do not look the same at all. Like two totally different artists. And you can tell that it’s not the same artist and they have a different feeling to each of them. M. Uh, my assumption is that was part of the reasoning behind the way those books were produced.

Laurie Berkner: Yeah, I mean, there were very different, um, kinds of songs, really. Um, and Pillowland being more dreamy and more in the lullaby world. And, uh, Monster Boogie being about dancing and owning your own inner monster, basically.

Steve Cuden: With the videos, do you, um, direct them or does somebody else direct them?

Laurie Berkner: I have a woman who basically runs my company and also directs and edits the videos. Um, Katie Schneller Messer. She is quite an amazing human being, but. And she hasn’t done all of them, but she’s done the bulk of the ones that have come out in the last 10 years.

Steve Cuden: Well, tell her well done, because they’re well done. They’re well done. They’re really good. So I wondered if you did that as well. But you don’t use. You sort of. You’re just a performer in it at that point.

Laurie Berkner: Thank God. Yeah, I’m fine. You could just. I will stand there all day and read the things and play the songs and sing and. But, uh, like, if I had to be behind the camera, I don’t know, we would not have a lot of good videos.

Steve Cuden: Well, then you’re very lucky to have someone like that around you. Well, I have been having just the most marvelous, fun conversation with Laurie Berkner, and we’re going to wind the show down just a little bit. And I’m wondering, in all, all of your lengthy experiences at this point, are you able to share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, strange, or just plain funny?

Laurie Berkner: So when I was singing, I was singing outside at a, uh, concert, and I was singing the song Bumblebee, buzz, buzz. And a bee during that song flew into my mouth and stung me.

Speaker C: Oh.

Steve Cuden: Ow.

Laurie Berkner: And I finished the song.

Steve Cuden: Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness.

Laurie Berkner: Which. Yeah, that was. That was, um. Yeah, I don’t. I don’t know. Somehow the adrenaline, like, got me through all of that, but that. I couldn’t believe it happened actually during that song.

Steve Cuden: Wait, did you have to stop after that?

Speaker C: No.

Laurie Berkner: I mean, I stopped for a minute, and I was like, uh, I need a minute. And it was in the back of my tongue. I don’t know. I just, like, I drank some water and I kept going. And afterwards, it was like it hurt after. You know what I mean? Like, there is something about adrenaline when you’re on stage. You know, it stops you from throwing up. It stops you. I remember being, you know, having morning sickness and doing it and, like, all the things it, like, helps a person get through. And that’s what happened that day. I got through.

Steve Cuden: Well, as the old adage is, the show must go on.

Laurie Berkner: The show must go on. Fun.

Steve Cuden: You keep going. That’s. That’s wild that it happens during that particular song. On top of it. All right, so last question for you today, Laurie. Um, along the way here, you’ve given us just a huge amount of very valuable information and advice. But I’m wondering, when people come up to you and say, how do I get to do what you do? What kind of advice or tip do you give them that to helps them to get into the business, or maybe they’re in a little bit trying to get to the next level.

Laurie Berkner: The thing is that I think there are a lot of aspects of doing music for kids or doing. There’s so many aspects of doing things that help that connect people to kids. So it could be writing stories, it could be performing, it could be, um, singing, whatever. There’s so many different things, and I. What I’ve noticed and what I think was really important for me was that I have to. I had to keep paying attention to what it was that was both fun for me and working. Uh, you know, sometimes people, they’ll say, like, if you want to get to the next level, you have to do this thing. But, like, if it’s not a thing that you don’t feel is that you’re good at, if you. I mean, it’s okay to try and stretch, of course, but I feel like if we need to bring. I need to bring the thing. People who want to move to whatever that next level is need to bring whatever it is that they. That got them to the first level with them, right? To, like, remember, oh, this is. This is where I shine. This is What I’m good at, this is what I can bring to the table. And, like, don’t. Don’t leave it behind. Like, stay connected to what that is so that you don’t lose the joy of why you started in the first place and you don’t lose the connection to what’s meaningful for you and what maybe even, like, brought you to what you’re doing. Because I think a lot of times when we’re enjoying something, that’s what brings kids on first and foremost is like, they really feel that. So I think it’s really important to stay connected to that. And maybe it slowly fades and it develops over time, but don’t forget about it.

Steve Cuden: Well, that is extremely wise advice because frequently as people get into a career, they forget why they got into the career, and the career sort of pushes them around in some way, and it’s not what they remember. So for you to say, to go back and remember why you’re doing this, I think is extremely valuable. Hopefully that keeps somebody on the right path of what they were trying to accomplish in the first place. Laurie Berkner, this has just been an absolutely wonderful time on Story Beat. And for those of you that want to know more, I, uh, highly urge you to go to laurieberkner.com or you can, um, check out, check out numerous videos on YouTube under. How does. How will they find you on. Just under Lori Berkner on YouTube?

Laurie Berkner: It’s the Lori Berkner Band.

Steve Cuden: The Lori Berkner Band. So I can’t thank you enough for being on the show today. I greatly appreciate it such.

Laurie Berkner: It was really, really great conversation. Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve Cuden: So now, as promised, we have a real gift for you for your listening pleasure. Laurie has graciously lent us her fantastic song that we talked about. Everyone’s demanding bananas, so please sit back and enjoy.

“Everyone’s Demanding Bananas”: I demand a banana. Banana. Yes. Everyone’s demanding bananas. I don’t know what’s going on. Everyone demanding bananas. They peel them, they eat them, then they’re gone. If you are a demanding banana, you might know what’s going on. But if you’re just demanding bananas, uh, you peel them, you eat them, then they’re gone. If you start to demand bananas too, it won’t be long before I hear this song from you. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana. Banana, Banana. I want a banana. I want it in my hand. I want it while I sit up. I want it while I stand up. I want it while I jump. I want it while I spin. I Want a banana? I don’t care what hand it’s in? Cause there’s just one thing I know? If I don’t get one now, I’ll go banana. I’ll go bananas? If I don’t get one now, I’ll go bananas? Bananas? I’ll go bananas? If I don’t get one now, I’ll go B a n a n a s B a n a n a s B a n a n a s Uh, B a n a n a s B a n a b a n a n a s B a n a n a s B a n a n a s B a n a n a s Do we want bananas? Yes. Everyone’s demanding bananas. Uh, I don’t know what’s going on. Everyone’s demanding bananas. They peel them, they eat them, then they’re gone. If you are a demanding banana, m uh, you might know what’s going on. But if you’re just demanding bananas, you peel them, you eat them, then they’re gone. You peel them, you eat them, then they’re gone. You peel them, you eat them, then they’re gone. Because I have a banana at, uh, home.

Steve Cuden: And so we’ve come to the end of today’s Story Beat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to? Your support helps us bring more great Story Beat episodes to you. Story Beat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden and may all your stories be unforgettable.