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Busy people get a lot of email.


This fall I set myself a simple project: write songs about the people, places and discoveries that caught my heart, then send each one to the people it was about. Scientists who untangled the cosmos, firefighters and town staff who showed up on a hard day, land trusts, teachers, historians, a trail builder in Boston, a farmer in Hadley.

I didn’t know what to expect. Busy people get a lot of email. But the replies kept coming, from Seattle, Nanjing, Ottawa, Chicago, Lima, Sussex and right here in the Valley. Some were a line or two. Some were long, generous letters. A few made me cry. Here are some of my favorites.

“By the time I reached the final verse of the song, I was misty-eyed and choked up in public, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.”

— Miles Howard, creator of the Boston Boundless Trail
on Boundless

“It is really terrific: the music, the lyrics… I can almost guarantee that at some point in the near future we will be singing your song.”

— Charles McCreery, Director, Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (NOAA)
on Tsunami Lament

“Hundreds of videos have been produced on my research, but no one but you has thought of writing a song about it.”

— Rajendra Gupta, Adjunct Professor of Physics, University of Ottawa
on Forces Fading

“This is fantastic, really made my month… one of the coolest things to come of my research.”

— Travis Yeager, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
on NASA’s Moon Commute

“I spend so much time working with these observations, seeing now someone connect with them in such a creative way is really special and heartwarming.”

— Thalia Traianou, astrophysicist
on Crooked Jet Pulsar

“We’re so honored to have Shedd’s research inspire an entire song, and the instrumentals are truly breathtaking.”

— Elise Mulligan, Shedd Aquarium, Chicago
on 24 Species Spawn

“I’ve played it on repeat several times. It’s so sweet and melodic… It’s great and really touches my heart!”

— Bao Yang, Nanjing University
on Han Wood

“The song is like a poem, very beautiful and inspiring.”

— Haipeng Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences
on A Thousand Fires Remained

“I really enjoyed listening to your ditty and found it to be pretty accurate as well.”

— Alan Weinberg, President, Hadley Historical Society
on The Hadley Witch

“I think it’s rather wonderful. What a lovely surprise.”

— Anil Seth, Director, Sussex Centre for Consciousness Science
on To Be You

“This song is so terrific. So accurate.”

— Kaye Reed, President’s Professor Emerita, Arizona State University
on We Were Not Alone

“It is quite remarkable to see engineering research find its way into music… You really made my day!”

— Simos Gerasimidis, Associate Professor, UMass Amherst
on Roads & Bridges

“Thank you for giving three-dimensional time a musical voice!”

— Gunther Kletetschka, University of Alaska Fairbanks
on Fractured Time Lattice

“It’s summertime at the NEST in musical form! We’ve been playing it all afternoon here in the RecWell Center.”

— Carey Lang, UMass Amherst NEST Challenge Course
on UMass Ropes

“We’ve never had anything like this happen before, this is truly so cool.”

— Sharon Sullivan, Lawn Love
on New England Camping

“I absolutely LOVE this song! … It sounds like an Appalachia murder ballad.”

— Carrie N. Baker, Professor of American Studies, Smith College
on Our Women

“We are very proud of the response from our public safety crew that day… It is so cool that you’ve now memorialized it this way.”

— Deanna Garner, Town of Lenox
on Wagon Wheel Burning

“Great job! It was fun to hear. I love Bluegrass and the tune was skillfully done… It is like a wonderful gift.”

— Joe Czajkowski, Joe Czajkowski Farm, Hadley
on Pioneer Valley Sunshine

Songs are passing from inbox to inbox, too. NOAA’s tsunami scientists sent theirs to both U.S. Tsunami Warning Centers. Penn Engineering’s communications team passed “Robot Photonics” around the office. New Hampshire Fish and Game is sharing “Monadnock Remembers” with the Field Lieutenants who run search and rescue. Monte Belmonte featured “The Hadley Witch” on NEPM’s The Fabulous 413, and WMUA’s Early Bird Show will play “The Fiddler’s Coming to Northampton” on November 7.

Thank you to everyone who took a moment to listen and write back. You reminded me why I make music: not for the numbers, but for the community.

Read more testimonials

Never miss a new song

Follow me on Bandcamp at adamsweet.bandcamp.com. It’s free, and you’ll get a note whenever I release a new song.

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