‘How ’Bout Us’: Son re-imagines dad’s hit single
The year: 1980.
Dana Walden was the cool, young keyboard-vocalist for the new rhythm-and-blues band, Champaign, named for their home city in Illinois. Walden’s love-sonnet song to his wife, “How ’Bout Us,” gets featured in the band’s debut album the next year.
Its lyrics: “Oh, short and sweet. No sense in draggin’ on past our needs. Some people are made for each other. Some people are made for another for life, how ’bout us.”
Maybe you remember the smooth-as-silk tune. It was a romance anthem for couples.
The song becomes a hit single. A Billboard chart topper. A Hot 100 pick for 23 weeks.
Walden’s son, Justin, was just 10 at the time. He grew up with that song running through his head, a soundtrack of his parents’ love
affair. He was even in the Chicago studio when it was recorded.
Justin grew up, left Champaign, made a name for himself as a musician, videographer and entrepreneur, and later returned to his hometown. His dad’s song never left him.
“I can’t imagine life without it,” he said. “It’s been like a little brother to me. It also has fed and housed our family. Since I was little, I’ve sung the song so many times – out loud and in my head – I know the lyrics better than my own name.”
Earlier this year, along with the rest of the world, Justin was glued to his TV watching our country’s civil unrest and violent rioting. It upset him. It consumed him. He wanted to chime in using his musical skills and talents. But how? His father’s hit song from four decades ago tapped him on the shoulder. What about me?
“True story,” said Justin’s publicist, Steve Allen.
His public relations firm, PR with a Conscience, specializes in promoting material of an educating, stimulating and enlightening nature. Allen, its 69-year-old founder and president, pitched the idea to me perfectly, oh, so short and sweet.
“A very cool new positive anthem is created,” Allen told me. “A solution? A dream? Justin hopes people will listen. He hopes his expression will be absorbed.
“But who’ll be the souls to step up and come together to create the change we so desperately need? How ’bout us?”
Allen had my curiosity piqued. I asked for more details. His PR missives are refreshingly atypical. We shared more than a dozen emails as I asked more questions about Justin, then about himself. Over the course of 25 years in the newspaper business, I’ve never asked so many personal questions about a PR person’s personal life.
“Life is good, Jerry,” Allen replied. “It’s a mental game. You have to remind yourself how beautiful you are. Just like everyone else, brighten that inner light then move forward and see if you can help another who’s adrift in the sea of confusion.
You and I both win when we come from that place.”
What? Huh? I had to read that email twice to let it sink in.
He ended it with, “Take care of yourself, bro … think clearly … unprecedented times. Peace.”
I felt compelled to ask more questions about Justin’s brainstorm for “How ’Bout Us.” Justin’s idea kept tapping him on the shoulder, like an annoying little brother, he said.
Out of the blue, the song lyrics began changing in his mind. Instead of hearing the love ballad that his dad wrote — inviting his mom to take a chance on love — Justin heard it as a love song from the world asking humanity for another shot.
One day while listening to the original promo vinyl of his dad’s song, Justin listened specifically to the bridge of the song. The band’s singer, Pauli Carman, asks, “Are we gonna make it girl?” Justin began hearing in his head, “Are we gonna make it world?”
Then it hit him. This reworked song could be about more than a relationship between two people. It can be about our relationship as a people. With his dad’s blessing, Justin added timely new lyrics, a fresh beat, and a re-imagined refrain.
In August, under the name Scarecrow Adams, he released the song, retitled as “How ’Bout Us (Bringin’ the Love).” It features Carman, who sang the original song. (Watch it on YouTube.)
Its lyrics: “It’s been hundreds of years in a system of hate. So the anger is real and we retaliate. But to love is to heal, and before it’s too late. We can share what we feel, we can learn to relate.”
Justin said the new song re-imagines the possibilities for all of us.
“The only unknown that remains is who will be able to come together to create the change we need,” he said. “To that unknown I offer a simple question, ‘How ’bout us?’ ”
It’s musical poetry with a social conscience, reflecting his publicist.
Allen believes in this song. He believes in Justin. He believes in humanity. His emails end the same: “Life is good. Peace.”
The year: 2020.
A new love sonnet has been released into a world of anger, pain, division and politics. It may climb the charts. It could become a hit. It might linger in our collective consciousness. These are Justin’s hopes as an artist.
As a son, he hopes to capture a flash of the loving magic from his father’s song. “I have been given the rare healing gift of being able to both honor and collaborate with my dad on the re-imagining of a song that is loved by millions,” Justin said. “This song has supported me all my life. It then challenged me to heal and change. The times we face are doing the same for all of us.”
He hopes to heal people’s hearts.
“I have no doubt that we are capable of meeting this moment,” he said.
Life is good. Peace.