Alex Gaw

I'm releasing my song Hersh on August 18th. It's a tribute to Hersh Goldberg-Polin (and his parents Rachel and Jon). Hersh was one of the "Beautiful 6," who were murdered by Hamas in a dark, cramped tunnel, after being held there for almost 11 months under horrific conditions.

In the months before his death Hersh became one of the most recognizable faces of the hostages, probably in large part because of his seemingly inexhaustible parents, who became the most recognizable faces of the hostage families--traveling the world, talking to anyone who would listen, showing their fierce love and full humanity to the entire world. Sadly it wasn't enough. The world failed Hersh and the other beautiful 5 souls who were murdered, just as we have failed all the others who haven't and won't come home. We continue to fail them.

Since Hersh was murdered in a tunnel days before he was found, we don't know exactly when his yahrzeit (the anniversary of his death on the Hebrew calendar) is. But the closest I can figure, he died around the 24th of Av, which this year is August 18th.

It would mean a lot to me if you could listen to this song.

If you want, you can pre-save it here:

Hersh by Alex Gaw Stream and Pre-save Hersh - Distributed by DistroKid

It's been a tough couple months. It's been difficult to find time or energy or motivation to make music. The few songs or poems I've written have all been about Oct 7 and its fallout.

So it was really nice last weekend when I had some downtime and it was a beautiful day and I finally felt like playing music. It helped that I was working on a cover of a beautiful song by and I really wanted to get to where I felt comfortable sharing it (see previous post).

So I sat on my back porch and I played. I played her song a bunch, and I played some of my own songs, and yes some of them were about Oct 7 but it still felt really good.

Then the next day I went into the backyard and there was a piece of wood lying on the grass. It hadn't been there the previous day. It seemed weird. I looked more closely and noticed the words "Flip over" and a string. Now I was starting to feel nervous. I don't know, maybe it was a type of bomb I'd never heard of or there was a severed finger or a sw****ka or something else horrifying. I told my son Ezra to back away just in case, and I turned it over with my toe.

I saw this folded up note with a little flower and the words "to the guy with the guitar," and I was still nervous but not as much. I mean, it could still be upsetting. It could still be a note telling me to get my filthy Zionist colonist family out of Northeastern Round Rock. But at the very least it wasn't a bomb, and there's no way a finger would fit in there.

I opened it and read and my heart swelled. A passing stranger had connected with me and my music. I got to be part of a beautiful moment. I'm so grateful they took the time to tell me about it, even if it started out scary.

Thanks kind neighbor, I hope your year started as sweetly as mine did.

-The guy with the guitar

Oh heck, it's out now! If you like machines, or songs, or songs from machines, or literally anything at all, you might like this compilation! My song, Cold Shoulder, is song 15. I'm so astounded that I get to be in such extraordinary company.

https://open.spotify.com/album/28YBrK2dGrzTB4LXkFsmXN?si=BOhtTYyjTZq5RKZdibOG3A

The Song Machine (Song Machine Version) The Song Machine · Album · 2023 · 17 songs.

"My dentist takes beautiful pictures
of wildlife

specifically birds"

God bless John Elliott

I'm watching James McMurtry for the first time and it's incredible. Unfortunately I've also listened to Gary Floater so I'm bursting into gut laughter every time somebody yells "yessir!" Which is often.

My latest release, Keep Dreaming, has 44 streams on Spotify. It was released in February. Don't end up like me, friends. Promote your releases.

Also I guess here's a link in case you want to be lucky number 45 oh my god what did I just say

https://open.spotify.com/track/6PfmNu8fsS4oesFoyKrFHT?si=AxivcQiuS7m8_DsJdMMztw