paularenson
(Paul Arenson)

Bio:
I have been writing and singing since the age of 14. A red diaper baby born in 1952, I have lived in Tokyo 1979, teaching alternative media and English at several universities. I am involved in peace and social justice activities, which includes maintaining a website that you can access from my music page listed here.

I have always been somewhat conflicted where music is concerned, alternating between classical, traditional folk, contemporary folk and protest songs. (I have always felt the absolutely worst interpretations of folk and pop music have been by classically trained singers. The (in)famous "3 tenor" versions of contemporary pop music would be one example. Despite the fact that I trained from my early teens to be an opera singer (or, perhaps, BECAUSE of this), I try not to let one style intrude on the other, with mixed success.

I am very interested in any of the following:

(1) Others singing or harmonizing my songs, adding words, arranging for various voices and instruments,etc.
(2) Being invited to sing your songs
(3) Writing music for others' lyrics
(4) Writing lyrics for others' music

I subscribe to COPYLEFT principles, believing that music should be free, as long as the contributions of the creators are recognized. I have licensed two songs by Tom Paxton, on the other hand, because I recognize that not all artists are ready to adopt these same principles and I respect their wishes. That said, his publishers were very nice about it and we negotiated reduced fees. I sell a CD on CD Baby for those who want to get an actual piece of plastic for their audio system, and also sell MP3s on various sites, but the income I get from those is negligible, all of it invested in my progressive website (TokyoProgressive.org). Most of my music is, therefore, available at no charge here:

http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/paularenson

You can also here a radio show we did at Izzy Young's apartment in the mid 70s
at that site.

Yours for peace,

paul