In 1990, a friend of mine asked if I could help with writing a song for a high school graduation ceremony. It became the only song I’ve ever had performed by someone other than myself.

We came up with the initial ideas in roughly 15 minutes, but I spent a number of days using the school’s workstation — which had a MIDI sequencer that was state of the art for the time — to create the actual arrangement.

In the end, the song had three co-writers — I did the music, and my two friends wrote the lyrics. The song had one requirement: incorporate the class motto “strivers for a better tomorrow.”

An instrumental version of the song was officially released, but this subscriber exclusive presents the song with the original lyrics.

It’s such a youthful work that I would feel awkward singing it myself, so I wrote an alternate version (“The Waking Start”) that re-imagined the song as sci-fi theater piece. It’s not much better. So I’m letting vocal synthesizers take over.

I was asked to help out the next year, but the song wasn’t used. The story behind why is classic high school politics and not worth recounting. So I set lyrics to that song that is also another theater piece. I don’t have a future in musical theater.

— GB, 11/2025