Dan Pallotta has lived a storied life, growing up in working-class Massachusetts and absorbing his parents’ love of folk, country, and Irish music. Palotta wound up at Harvard — and into John Denver’s inner circle. Let’s hear from Dan:
When I was in college, I chaired our undergraduate hunger action committee. At the time, John Denver served on the President’s Commission to End World Hunger, and he came out to Harvard to speak. I organized the speech and got to hang out with him for a few hours the day he came. I felt like I was living in a dream world. He even picked me up in his limo. Well, his limo driver did. That next summer, I spent some time at John Denver’s Windstar Foundation college program in Snowmass, Colorado. We lived in tepees in the mountains, took outdoor lessons in Aikido, ate macrobiotic food, and Buckminster Fuller—the famous mathematician and philosopher—lectured to us in the teepees in the afternoon.
My real dream in college was to go into politics. I wanted to be President. I ran for office at a young age and won. But it was the early ’80s and I was starting to realize I was gay. There were no out political leaders back then. Being gay was a thing to hide, to keep secret, to be ashamed of, and so I said a sad and lonely goodbye to my dream. Music became my fallback. “Maybe I can express my passion for the world and for possibility in song,” I thought. I moved to Los Angeles to try and get a record deal. I auditioned for Clive Davis himself. I played him a much earlier version of the song, “American Pictures,” which is on my new album. He said it was “exceptional writing.” He wanted to listen to more and get back to me. He did, but said he didn’t hear a single with which he could break me. I continued to play him demos for the next few years. We became close friends, and still are.
After a thirty-year hiatus from music, Dan returns to the microphone with plenty to his name: one of the lead originators of social enterprise with the AIDSRides, the Breast Cancer 3-Day walks, and the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention walks; a TEDTalk speaker, and a happily married father to triplets. On his new song “Charity Town,” Pallotta channels his songwriting heroes for a gritty rocker decrying the struggles of the rust belt and the politicians who landed us here.
Does your album American Pictures have an overarching theme?
It’s a commentary on the malfunction of the American dream, a betrayal of trust between the nation and its people, and on the resilience of good people, and their unwillingness to become victims of their circumstances, no matter how challenging.
Tell us about the first song you wrote.
Ha! “Love is a Dream,” a song about girl I dated in high school. She dumped me and I wanted her back, or thought I did, but in reality I was struggling with being gay. I was a mess and the song is an attempt at authenticity that fails miserably because of the underlying lie.
Name a perfect song and tell us why you feel that way “Used Cars,” by Bruce Springsteen, from the “Nebraska” album. With a guitar and vocal and three chords, it paints a sweeping panormama of the heartbreak children feel for their parents’ lost dreams and fof the seeds of ambition, good or bad, that proceed from that pain. The gorgeous, simple melody that harkens back to the Carter family doesn’t hurt.
Do you have any songwriting tips you can share?
Great songwriting to me is about great reflection. And great reflection requires living a life that’s worthy of it. So to me, songwriting starts with living and being open to the joy and pain that brings. You feel something so deeply, you have to write about it. It can’t be about the need to write for writing’s sake alone. Also, try to stay away from big themes and abstractions in your lyrics. Talk about someone buttering their spouse’s toast every morning, rather than using bi words like, “love.” Let the lyric demonstrate the thing you’re talking about.
How are you using your platform to support marginalized people?
My whole life has been about supporting marginalized people. I began my career in philanthropy riding my bike 4,256 miles across America to raise money and awareness for world hunger. I’ve always had a soft spot for the underdog. I then raised hundreds of millions of dollars for people with AIDS and breast cancer. My music is pretty consistently about the marginalized. I wish i could just write a happy dance tune!