This piece originally appeared at Breaking Character, the online magazine of Samuel French, Inc. In honor of the one-year anniversary of Sandy Hook tomorrow, Brad Alexander is republishing it here. 

Whenever a news story moves me to want to express something, the little voice in my head inevitably asks, “Who are you to document this major event, let alone have an opinion about it?” So I shut down and don’t bother. The little voice has a good point. I’m not really one of those kinds of writers, like Springsteen or Marley or Hammerstein, who bravely comment about the world to the world, and do so exquisitely. For most of my adult career I’ve been a work-for-hire composer, scoring someone else’s idea, finding a sound for a moment or a character, co-writing a pop tune. What qualifies me to write about the news? And if I did, who would care?

On December 14, 2012, six adults and twenty children were shot dead in Newtown, Connecticut at Sandy Hook Elementary. It was unbearably sad for everyone involved: the victims, their families, our country, even the shooter himself. I had to write about it. But the little voice started up: “It’ll be too preachy, too sappy, too controversial. People will think you’re exploiting the event for your own gain.” Maybe because so many very young, innocent children were involved, maybe because I’m a semi-new father, maybe because I’m a die-hard anti-gun liberal – I couldn’t be silent this time. Little voice be damned, I had to say something. But what?

I mostly work from home and didn’t accomplish much that week as I watched the story unfold on CNN. Like so many people, I was glued to the TV despite the 24-hour assault of bad news, gun control debate and grieving parents. I was probably clinging to it to try and make sense of it. I started looking for some small silver lining as possible inspiration for a song. Maybe a shred of positivity, some fresh idea that might actually lift people’s spirits, especially those directly affected by the tragedy. But the little voice gnawed at me – every idea felt too trite, too literal.

One afternoon about four days after the shooting, I saw a story on CNN about a man who had harbored a group of first and second-grade children who’d escaped from the school during the shooting. The six kids had run from the school and made their way down the street to the yard of Gene Rosen, a retired psychologist, who discovered them sitting in a perfect semi-circle at the end of his driveway. Standing over them was a bus driver trying to comfort them. Gene had heard what sounded like far-off gunfire about 15 minutes prior but dismissed it as hunters or firecrackers. Around 9:30 am, fate landed on his doorstep.

One of the boys told him, “We can’t go back to school. Our teacher is dead. Mrs. Soto; we don’t have a teacher.” Gene walked the four girls and two boys past his goldfish pond and the garden he’d made with his two grandchildren, brought them into his home where he lives with his wife, listened to their stories and tried to comfort them with snacks and toys for the next several hours while calling their frantic parents. As the two boys described seeing their teacher being shot, one of them suddenly composed himself, turned to Gene and said, “Just saying, your house is very small.”

And there it was. A tiny speck of levity. I laughed through my tears as I watched Gene tell the story to CNN. It was one of the most beautiful aches I’d ever felt. In this moment of hopelessness, a hero emerged. He may not have been heroic in the traditional sense – he didn’t run into a burning house or fight in the mountains of Afghanistan – but to those six children, he was a bona fide, heaven-sent hero.

I immediately called my wife Jill and told her that she was going to write a lyric for a song idea inspired by this story. My idea was that Gene’s heart was too big for his “very small” house. I ran to the piano, recorded some rough sketches and waited for Jill to come home. Once I get excited about a song idea, I can’t write it fast enough. It took centuries for Jill to walk through that door.

We wrote the song in a few hours. She, too, had been crying for days and wanted to put something into words. What we liked most about the song was that it was apolitical. We certainly have our feelings about gun control, but we didn’t want to make it about that. We only wanted people to remember Gene’s name. Thus the title: “Gene Rosen”. Here’s the lyric, by Jill Abramovitz:

YOU SHOULD START TO LOOK
FOR A BIGGER PLACE
WITH A WIDE FRONT PORCH
AND SOME OPEN SPACE
AND A MASSIVE YARD
‘CAUSE YOUR HEART’S TOO BIG FOR YOUR HOUSE

MAYBE SOMEWHERE ELSE
WHERE IT’S LESS INSANE
THAN THAT SMALL NEW ENGLAND
COUNTRY LANE
YOU NEED WAY MORE ROOM
‘CAUSE YOUR HEART’S TOO BIG FOR YOUR HOUSE

GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
ROSES BLOOM AND ELM TREES SWAY
FOR WHAT YOU DID THAT FATEFUL DAY
GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
YOUR HEART’S A HUNDRED TEN FEET TALL
YOUR HOUSE WON’T WORK – IT’S WAY TOO SMALL

THOSE KIDS WERE SITTING FROZEN THERE
CHERUBS IN THE CHILLY AIR
YOU PICKED THEM UP
AND BROUGHT THEM INTO YOUR HOUSE

FOUR SMALL GIRLS AND TWO YOUNG BOYS
YOU GAVE THEM JUICE AND SHARED YOUR TOYS
AND YOU LET THEM KNOW
THEY WERE SAFE AND SOUND IN YOUR HOUSE

GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
YOUR GOLDFISH POND IS NICE, IT’S TRUE
BUT YOU DESERVE AN OCEAN, TOO
GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
A MANSION WITH A MILLION FLOORS
COULD MAYBE HOUSE A HEART LIKE YOURS

OOH

GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
I LIKE YOUR HOUSE, BUT THIS IS IT
YOU GOTTA MOVE – YOUR HEART WON’T FIT
ON SECOND THOUGHT – THERE’S PROBABLY NOT
A HOUSE THAT HOLDS THE HEART YOU’VE GOT
GENE ROSEN
GENE ROSEN
YOU MADE THEM FEEL A LITTLE BIT OKAY
ROSES BLOOM AND ELM TREES SWAY
ROSES BLOOM AND ELM TREES SWAY

I recorded myself singing the song one afternoon before racing off to pick up my son from daycare. I knew it was a rushed performance, but this wasn’t about the quality of my vocal. I did a few takes, picked the least crappy one, uploaded it to YouTube and hoped that it made its way to anyone who needed to hear it.

Everyone wanted to know if Gene had heard the song. We hoped so. We sent a copy to CNN and crossed our fingers that someone would pass it along, but no one got back to us. We did receive some beautiful, moving feedback via YouTube, Facebook and email from friends, relatives, and, most important, Newtown residents. Unfortunately, in social media, with good comes bad. Our song also invited a number of disturbing comments on YouTube – misinformed, hateful, anti-Semitic messages from “truthers” and conspiracy theorists attempting to discredit and humiliate Gene as part of their claim that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax designed by the U.S. government. We loved that Anderson Cooper publicly took these bogus claims to task but, still, how could people be so ignorant and so deliberately cruel? It felt more important than ever that Gene hear the song. Six days after we uploaded it, I received an email from Gene asking me to call him.

Instant knot in stomach. Gene was definitely going to make us take the song off the Internet in light of all the negativity. The little voice in my head barked, “I told you so!” But no. Gene just wanted to connect. We spoke on the phone for 45 minutes. For privacy’s sake I won’t disclose much of our conversation except to say that he was as warm, sensitive and kind as he seemed on TV and that he deeply appreciated the song. To Gene, the heroes from that day were those six kids who appeared on his driveway, and the only reason he granted so many interviews was to tell the world about how brave they were. Gene and those children inspired us to write something honest, true and a tiny bit hopeful, and for that we’re eternally grateful. Toward the end of our phone call Gene told me something that I can share with his permission: You don’t have to witness an event firsthand to feel it. The little voice in my head was silenced. Gene had given me a beautiful gift: a generous amen – the right to write.

“Gene Rosen” is featured on VOICES FROM AROUND THE WORLD: THE MUSIC, from which 100% of the proceeds will provide funding for the Sandy Hook Elementary School Music Department.  Click here to purchase:  https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/id671159410

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