Changeling's Return: a novel approach to the music

Changelings were believed to be troll or fairy children left in place of stolen human babies. Morgen, an adopted foundling reared in Boston, Massachusetts, now in his mid-twenties, is the charismatic lead-singer and songwriter for Beantown Home Cookin,’ a showband featuring the Trashbabies, a troupe of singer-dancers who contribute mightily to the band’s growing popularity. After a sensational live BBC broadcast of their May Eve concert, Morgen skips its wrap party to test drive a rented sports car. A squall causes him to skid into a ditch and daybreak finds him seeking help in Morningstone, an isolated village where it seems the storm wiped out communication with the outside world. In the village pub, Morgen overhears one girl argue that Fates, Muses and Furies represent the denigration of the Mother Goddess, reducing her to a bevy of bickering departmental nymphs. Another suggests fragmentation of the goddess is a device of exposition, used to reveal a crisis dramatically through confrontation between various aspects of her character.According to Fiona, the wise lady at the cottage, song and chant used to mean the same thing, and Morgen, an increasingly popular singer and songwriter, is an enchanter by definition. His songs are spells that once heard, will return, going ‘round and ‘round in one’s head, even when there’s no music to hear. B y now, music and story, Changeling’s Return has crossed into a supernatural realm where, within the Tomb of Every Hope, Morgen represents humanity, on trial for crimes against Nature. The Furies seek his death. Instead, he receives a sip from the Cauldron of Inspiration, becoming The Fool, “Truth, Reason, and Magic, Harmony of the Carnal and the Mystical—Man.” Is Morgen human, recognizing humanity’s dependence and obligation to nature for its survival, or a changeling reared by humans, reawakening to his supernatural origins, and if the latter, what impact will Changeling’s Return have on the human race? As the Trashbabies sing in their exit song, “Dog, Roebuck, and Lapwing, your nonsense song makes my ears ring. Between the lines I hear you sing.”

About the Author

Travis Edward Pike, founder of Otherworld Cottage Industries, Chairman Emeritus of the New Playwrights Foundation in Santa Monica, California, and winner of a 2019 South East Star Lifetime Achievement Award, was born and reared in Boston,Massachusetts. In 1956, 12-year-old Pike was censured for writing poetry in study hall at Boston Latin School, but years later, Pike's epic narrative rhyme, Grumpuss, won an International Communications Competition Silver Plaque Award for Special Achievement--Writing at the Chicago Film Festival. Composer and lyricist, Pike's first movie title song was Demo Derby in 1963, and he wrote ten songs and starred in the pop musical Feelin' Good, made in Boston,released in 1966. One of those songs, "Watch Out Woman," finally released a half-century later on a vinyl 45 in the U.K., was #3 in Shindig!magazine's Best of 2017 list. In 1975, the same year he began writing Changeling, Pike provided the music for The Second Gun, a Golden Globe nominee for best feature-length documentary. Pike's novelization of his Changeling screenplay, is Changeling's Return, a novel approach to the music, spawning his new music CD, Changeling's Return, a novel musical concept, both the result of more than 40 years of creative evolution. In 2018, Pike's Otherworld Cottage Industries, won a LUXLife magazine Global Entertainment Award.

Reviews

News