My partner is Kate Burkart. She’s a musician and a mom. She’s many other things, including my sweetheart. Together, we try to make sense of the world, and our lives, since March 2020.
COVID-19 has affected so many, in so many different ways. We feel fortunate that we and our loved ones are healthy, and still with us. Many have not been so fortunate.
Last week California went into another lockdown, as cases, hospitalizations, and deaths rose. We’re dealing as best we can with the fear and the disruption, as are so many others. As before, there is science to be taken seriously, and there are precautions to be taken, and blessings to be counted.
Kate can’t practice with her band, which had been gaining momentum earlier this year. Before March, there were rehearsals. And gigs. And more gigs. Kate misses playing to people, as, I imagine, most musicians do. In April, Kate took to our “music room,” where she sat with her acoustic guitar, sketching out ideas over the weeks.
One of her ideas, inspired by the pandemic, developed to the point where she sent a voice memo to her friend, James DePrato. James put a simple demo track under her vocal and sent it back.
Kate liked what he had done. The demo was fleshed out into a fuller arrangement. Kate did a scratch vocal on top of it.
In late summer, Kate went to a studio and, socially-distanced, put a final vocal on top of James’ backing.
Kate worked with her son, Will Burkart, on a video that incorporated Kate’s song with some of my photography.
This is the result.
If you’d like to stream or buy Kate’s song, you can do so on Bandcamp.
There are many key elements that will help us through this ongoing, uncharted, frightening experience. Music will be one of them. Kate and I will never take music for granted; it’s never let us down.
Thank you for listening.
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