Michael McLean

In this "Sunday Blessings" Podcast Jay Hildebrandt talks with songwriter Michael McLean about how he became a songwriter and his inspiration for his "Forgotten Carols" songs.

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The Sunday Blessings Podcast is hosted by Jay Hildebrandt and features stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. You'll hear extended interviews, musician & artist spotlights, and more. Sunday Blessings can be heard weekly on Sundays from 5am-5pm mountain standard time on Classy 97, Sunny 97, and Classy 97 Lite.

Sharing stories of faith, hope, and inspiration. This is the Sunday Blessings podcast. Welcome to the Sunday Blessings podcast. I'm Jay Hildebrand. This is an interview I did with songwriter Michael McClain done in November of 20 23 just before he began his annual forgotten carols tour for Christmas.

I asked him about his inspiration for writing forgotten carols and how he decided to become a songwriter. When I decided after I'd gotten home from South Africa where I'd been a missionary, And while I was there, I spent 7 or 8 months in a band. And I was working on and presenting with 3 other, missionaries of mine, one of which was Roger Hoffman who wrote consider the lilies of the field. Really, really talented guys. And it was there that I had an experience where I discovered you could you could sing things to people you couldn't say to them.

I mean, people weren't crazy about LDS missionaries back in 1971. We had a chance. There were about 70 of us in Southern Africa, Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, South Africa. And we did this tour all over South Africa and Rhodesia to introduce the I the concept of a family band to try to open up Uh-huh. Hearts.

And in that process, I wrote a song that was about a kid who hadn't told his dad he loved him. And, and, you know, I'm not this great singer. We did have a fabulous lead singer at the and you'd you'd recognize this reference, Jay. You're old enough to know he was a cross between Tom Jones and Sammy Davis junior. I mean, he was just amazing.

Yeah. And, and when I played the song for him, he's and I said, would you sing this Elder Nichols? And he said, you know, it sounds like a kind of a you thing, McClain. Why don't we try it in this next series of concerts we did? And so I did sing it.

And afterwards, a really tough guy, Ofer Connor, came up and said, could I talk to you, kid? Well, nobody ever wanted to talk to a missionary with a, you know, a badge on, particularly a kid, and he and I said, sure. And he said, you know that song about your dad? You know that same thing happened to me. Could we talk for a minute?

Because I'm trying to learn to be a better dad. And suddenly, I had this amazing If I sing from my heart things that express it, I could sing things and open a conversation with him. So, so I thought, well, what if I spent the rest of my life trying to do that, trying to use music to open a communication, a discussion, not to come and preach to anybody, but to say, could we talk about this? Here's been my experience. What's your experience?

Can we change? So when I got home from my mission and I thought, if I'm gonna try to do this for a living, Jay, I can't just wait to be in Africa having the muse come upon me and present my song or or as Taylor Swift, date a guy for 6 months and then break up and write about it. I mean, I I can't wait for the muse to come, and I didn't think I was that talented, but I thought, what if I wrote a song every day, for a year, in different genres? And before I went to bed, I had to have written a verse, a chorus, sometimes a bridge, and a lyric just one time through. And I'd do every week, it'd be a different genre.

So I'd listen to country songs and try to write country songs, and I'd listen to pop songs and rock and roll songs. And because I graduated from high school across the river from New York City, I'd write some musical theater songs. And, I just wanted to be able to say so, Jay, if you had said to me, Michael, could you write a song about a retired guy who's now doing podcasts to combine his love for music and for the gospel, and I would like a song maybe less than a minute, and I need it by 4:30 today that I wouldn't have to, you know, go into some trance or or take a drug or something. I could just do it. And, and, Jay, I wrote a lot of really, really awful songs.

I mean, just terrible songs. Well intentioned. You know? Mhmm. But my dad always said, you cannot hide your good intentions behind really bad craft, or rather you can't use your good intention to disguise the fact that you're a lousy songwriter.

You gotta get good at doing that and preserving your heart. So I just became sold on that. And I'd had some success. I made commercials for the church. I made this movie called mister Kruger's Christmas with Jimmy Stewart that I, produced, and, I got a chance to I'm one of the few guys that got a chance by himself as a as a 27 year old to stand alone in front of the first presidency in the of the 12, and at that time, it was Spencer Kimball, and pitch my idea and get them to agree.

So let me produce this movie and figure out how to get a superstar to do it. And so I really loved Christmas, and I had songs that were successful. 40 years this is interesting. 40 years ago last month, my song You're Not Alone was first introduced to the world, and, I had been doing, you know, stories and firesides and whatever, and so people would listen to me probably because of mister Kruger's Christmas, but I'd always add songs. So I went to Deseret Book at the time because I've done a lot of commercials for them.

And I said, you know, what if you instead of just distributing books with messages, what if you did music? And I've written this album called you're not alone, and, and maybe that could be a contribution to the different things you distribute. And their response was and you can't forget this. I can't ever forget this. Their response was, look, Michael.

Thanks. But, nobody nobody's gonna buy an album by a guy who can't sing. And I said, well, you know, you've heard the album. I mean, I I wrote all the songs, but I got really wonderful singers to sing them. Yeah.

But if you buy an album by Carole King or or Billy Joel or Stevie Wonder, that's who you get. But this thing with your name on it, you're not alone. You don't sing the songs. I'm sorry. Nobody's gonna buy a record by a guy who can't sing.

And so every year as I would present other album ideas or song ideas or whatever, the the answer was the same. Nobody's gonna listen. Nobody's gonna buy it. Then exactly 40 years ago at the end of September, there was a worldwide women's conference, and the theme of it was you're not alone because Elaine Cannon and Barbara Smith back in the day had heard that song in a little play I wrote, and they said, let's make this a theme and get a really cute young woman to sing it, Jan McArdle. And 600,000 women all over the world, the LDS world, heard this song overnight.

Next day, you'll be shocked by this, Jay. I get a phone call that says, you know, brother MacLean, that You're Not Alone album is a fabulous item. Oh, really? So in November, 40 years ago this month, about now, they released the album that I had already recorded and was ready to be produced. And that it and people resonated to the album, and it led to what now has been 45 albums that I've done since then that I've written, sung off, sung on, and some others not.

Well, the albums were hits, and each one was doing better than the last one. And I was building a bit of a following as a songwriter, And then the company said, oh, do a Christmas album, Michael. You gotta do a Christmas record. Kurt bet my buddy Kurt Bester had done a great job with his Christmas record Heiress Christmas, and, and people really like you. You should do a Christmas album.

And I said, why? Well, they I said, nobody's gonna write a better Christmas song than silent night. Done. Nobody's going to better get a better secular song than Chestnest Roasting on an Open Fire, and Handel did it with the look. We don't need a new song.

There's there's not been any new song. What we love about Christmas is the old songs because they're part of our hearts. You just I can't do it. And so they they pressured me because they thought there was I think because they thought, well, there's a marketing idea, and they would always say, well, maybe you could add one original song, but then do great arrangements. You know, Manheim Steamroller had had this great record where they had different arrangements of classic tunes.

And I said, if I was a brilliant arranger, that would be a great idea, but I am not. So I I let it go. Then December, I think it was December 5th 1990, I'm sitting at the piano just kind of noodling stuff, and my, songwriting experience is kind of and I can't explain it. I've been doing this for 50 years, and I still don't know how it works. But kind of this idea and this lyric and this music kinda got born at the same moment.

And I'm doing the opening, and the opening goes, I am a man forgotten. No one recalls my name. 1000 of years will fail to fully erase my shame, but I turned a prophet nicely that day when I turned the couple away. I turned them away. And I grabbed my yellow pad, and I thought, well, nobody's written this song before about the innkeeper who turned away Joseph and Mary.

And, and this is just a little sidebar. As I'm working on this song, and that's, you know, that's you know, I made films for the LDS church, and I'd scored some movies, some secular movies as a songwriter, and I did some popular stuff and did ads for a lot of different companies. But that's how I paid the light bill. So and I think this is my great calling. Now the true confession.

My 12 year old walks into where my little studio was, and he leans against the wall or the door jam while I'm writing my song. And I see him, and this is the guy who made all the commercials. Give your children everything. Give them your time. Well, except when you're writing a song that might get you through college.

So I'm I'm work I'm working on this song, and, and I try to do oh, this is so dumb. I'm embarrassed by this still. So I tried to act like I was interested, but I wanted him to go away. Don't bug me, kid. This is more important than you.

This is how we feed each other. So I said, oh, hi, Scott. Anything I can do for you? And then I get down to the piano and write notes and hope you'd get the hint. And I and then I'd look up and say, you need anything?

Of course, you can always talk to me, which meant and I said, really? Do you need anything? And he said as a 12 year old, and that is 12 year old for stop everything. I am ready to talk to you. And I missed it.

Jay, I missed it. So, anyway, I keep working on the song and doing the thing, and, eventually, he just slips away. And I'm not thinking about it. So I finished the song, and I thought this is a this is a pretty amazing song, and maybe maybe this could be the impetus for that Christmas album I've been asked to do. The next day, I'm singing it back to myself, and I have this glorious and yet punishing painful I listened to the lyrics, and I realized that this that I thought was a song about the innkeeper turning away Joseph and Mary was about a dad who turned away his son.

I am a man forgotten. No one recalls my name. 1000 of years will fail to fully erase my shame, but I turned a prophet, writing songs, nicely that day that I turned the couple away. I told them where they could go, but I never saw the boy. I never saw the boy.

And he never would condemn me. I did that all on my own. He offers his forgiveness. And ever since then, I've known. He lets us know each hour of each day if Will asks us, will we let him in to stay?

And the and the innkeeper singing about Jesus in the song was, let him in. Let him in. And what I realized was the song that I felt the spirit was giving me was to teach me as a father to let my son in. Let him in. Let the joy let the peace on earth begin.

There is no peace within our little family until first, you know, restless life walked the streets all night lost and found by a heavenly delight. Staring at one bright star in the sky, I heard a baby cry. Well, that was my son wanted to talk to me, and I didn't let him in. So for 32 years, every time that I sing or we sing let him in, and it's part of a story about letting Christ in, The thing that Jesus was trying to teach me is you can't be at one with me until you are at one with those I gave you. So that's the significance of that song.

So the song's done, and then I start thinking of other characters in the Christmas story that nobody wrote about. And I started to write about nobody really wrote a great song about a shepherd that fell asleep and missed it all. And then, well, wait a second. That shepherds me too. He he has to decide if the story is true, not because he saw it, but because of how he felt in his being when he heard it.

You know, I felt like I was there even though I wasn't because of what this meant. So I kept writing these songs, and I thought it was just gonna be an album. Pretty interesting album, and then I thought, wait a second. Where did these songs come from? And then because of my great love of musical theater, I thought, well, what if I told the story about how the songs about people in the Christmas story we forgot about?

What if they came from a character that was actually there and heard these songs from the people who created their own different carols we've forgotten about? And what if that person was John the beloved who Jesus promised would live until he returned? And and then, so I wrote a book in April of 90 April of 90? Yeah. Or 91.

Yeah. April of 91, and, and it had these accompanying songs. Well, I knew I had friends and contacts at Deseret Book as a publisher, but nobody knew me as an author. So here I am saying, release this book, and what makes this book unique is it's this story, but at the back of the book will be, like, handwritten cop copies of the songs John, the beloved, brought with him for 2000 years. And if you can't sing them, my hope was people would read the book around Christmas, sing the songs at the right moment, or push play.

So that was the foundation of where the forgotten carols came from. So in in 2 minutes, what's the message of forgotten carols for the audience? The message of the forgotten carols in 2 minutes. Okay. This is the story, the fictional story, of a guy who basically is nuts because he thinks he's John the beloved.

And he believes that part of his mission is that Jesus had called him to bear witness of him until he comes again. And, and he's just been aging slower than anybody else, but he's convinced that Jesus must be coming soon because he's falling apart. He has got dementia a little bit. He is like, oh, my dad had dementia. We get old.

We forget stuff. But he has never forgotten his core message, which is to let people know that he lived through the eyes of characters that are just like us. I'm not a bad guy. I'm the innkeeper. I'm just too busy, you know, and all these things.

And that in those songs, the woman who is a nurse who is caring for him who cannot believe in Christmas because her heart had been broken, Every time she prayed it didn't work out, and she was frightened. She finds through these songs and the spirit that accompanies them where hope is. And that the ultimate message of the forgotten carols is the ultimate message of Jesus, which is fear not. It's scary. I know it's scary, but I came so you don't have to be so scary.

This has been a Sunday Blessings podcast and interview with songwriter Michael McClain. I'm Jay Hildebrand. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening to the Sunday Blessings podcast. If you enjoy the show, please share, subscribe, and rate the podcast.

Sunday Blessings is hosted by Jay Hildebrand and is a production of Riverbend Media Group. For more information or to contact the show, visit riverbendmediagroup.com.