Listen to “We’ve Got to Change This World” — a statement for our troubled times. (I recorded the new vocals for this in March 2025).
Just Published (March 2025)
During the past few years I have been doing a lot of connecting with some of my ancestors. At the beginning of 2023 I took on a large project, writing new music for hymn lyrics written more than 100 years ago by my great grandfather, Johnson Oatman, Jr. He was my grandfather’s father-in-law and was quite famous for hymns like “Higher Ground” and “Count Your Blessings” that have been included in literally hundreds of hymnals of many denominations. I have long believed that the task of “consciously aware” humans is to heal from such influences so we do not pass them on to future generations. But getting to know my ancestors through their own words and lyrics has led me to believe that it is not only the psychological and physiological health of future generations that is facilitated by focusing on our own healing – it is also, quite literally, healing the wounds of our ancestors.
I have been particularly moved by Johnson Oatman Jr.’s hymn lyrics, most of which focus on the attainment of heaven in the afterlife as a reward, perhaps, for surviving the miseries, heart-aches, and challenges of this life with Christian virtue intact. This world view reflects 20 centuries of Christian belief, or perhaps “church doctrine” is the right word here; for the church has always (in my view) used the promise of a better afterlife as an enticement to gain both the loyalty and financial support of its congregants. In truth, until the technical, financial, and public health advances of the 20th century and the explosive growth of the middle class after World War II, life really was pretty miserable and uncertain for most people. As Thomas Hobbes famously said, life for most of humanity was “nasty, brutish, and short.”
In March 2025 I released three books through IngramSpark: “The Stone From Halfway Rock Revisited — a Lifetime of Adventures on the Coast of Maine,” my grandfather’s memoir “My First Life — Becoming a Man on the Colorado Frontier, 1880 – 1905” which had been lost for more than 60 years, and “The Inner Circle, Book I – My Seventeen Years in the Cult of the American Sikhs.” All are available through independent bookstores, or you can order directly from Sheep Island Press online HERE.
ONE WAY TRIP TO MARS — A Rock Opera
Peter and his wife Johannah have written a rock opera together that has been performed in several venues, including the Waterville Opera House at the end of August 2017. We are currently planning a “post pandemic revival” that will be performed in Bath, Maine in the early fall of 2025.
See below for a description of the show. The poster below is from 2017.
“One Way Trip to Mars” is set in the year is 2033. During the previous decade several unmanned missions have transported to Mars the basic components for a human colony. Our hero, Paolo, is chosen from a worldwide competition to be the first human to travel to Mars. In taking on this mission Paolo relinquishes all he has ever known: his beautiful planet Earth, his family and friends, and his wife, Cassandra, who loves him even though she, in her wisdom, is aware of the misguided nature of his thirst for glory.
While on his way to Mars, war and nuclear terrorism on earth cause communication links to go down, leaving Paolo completely alone in the universe. In a last ditch attempt to colonize Mars (and save the human race, whose survival on the poisoned planet Earth is very much in doubt), the space agency sends Cassandra to join her husband. Paolo doesn’t know Cassandra is coming, and Cassandra doesn’t know if Paolo is even still alive. Through the course of 18 original songs leading to a dramatic ending, the story unfolds as Paolo evolves in emotional and spiritual maturity and Cassandra comes into her own power.
Here are a few samples of my music: