The cosmos or maybe these stories are real to ham waiting only to be called forth today's poem is the voyage nowhere by Jennifer song it draws me into that early morning state where the Dream Scape feels present Still it helps me to believe that I'm not mistaken when I think we go someplace every night as we dream that we become someone or something other than ourselves but never the less real maybe Atticus wanders a long lost home and a long lost life in his sleep returning to the houses and the people he wants new Maybe his soul returns to watch his mother or his wife to cast its gaze upon his children who are by now no longer children but fine men and women with families of their own maybe I do the same and maybe you do too the voyage nowhere by Jennifer song neither the dream recalled or escaped nor woman as Dreamer extracted I think what pictures traced of me by night what shape shifts on a bad covers like ocean laid to my queen sized back. I think and I am as good as guesswork I resort though do as the shadows would have me do what they to have done to me each night following as a loyal dog up the stairs into a room kept every size by dark where climbing the walls they grow tall like giants hovered from above what do they see or else what am I but semblance the captain's parrot alternating halfway across the sky between silence and mimicry. The slow down as a production of American Public Media and partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily go to slow down Show dot org and sign up for our newsletter. You're listening to Q On c.b.c. Radio one Sirius x.m. 169 and from p.r.i. Public Radio International I'm Tom our. Children and. So that voice you're hearing right there that's Mandy Patinkin the same Mandy Patinkin you might know from films like The Princess Bride or t.v. Shows like Chicago Hope or homeland what you're hearing there is the title track to his new album children and art you see music has been a big part of Mandy's life for a very very long time he's bringing some of his favorite songs to the stage in Toronto this week in a solo concert show called Diaries he's singing songs from his own album Songs from Broadway musicals even popular songs you've heard on the radio let's hear a little bit more maybe mom. Can we talk about this we just heard the children are to Stephen Sondheim tune track from the new record let's to hear you sing it again I mean I just it's so great to be singing if you get you started singing when you were a kid or you were in enquires when you were 7 or something yeah 7 years old I joined the boys' choir congregation of physics outside of Chicago this is Goldberg was the cantor's wife and she put me as a soloist in the boys' choir on Saturday shove us morning and I had a great time and then I did it till I was 14 or 15 after my like a year or 2 after my bar mitzvah and at the find my life I heard all those old men praying and crying in their voice when they sang and and that's sort of where I learned the feeling well that that music can be more than just a song you can be meaningful it can have a spiritual me yes it had to do something to it had a mystery to it because I would listen to these men who were I say old men that were younger than me. At the time with this. And to them pray and sing these beautiful melodies which are in my bones and there was a cry in their voice and there was a mystery to that cry and I and they would get lost in it and they close their eyes and it just was sort of magical and and I just didn't even pay attention but it just became a part of me I realized later on in life did you start to understand was there a moment where you started to hear music he started to go oh now I know what they were hearing now I know what they were feeling I do I do because I think whether it's funny sad meaningful connect they're all like little remembrances or prayers to me or recollections you know one of my favorite lines in all of literature is from a musical that Oscar Hammerstein wrote and it's a it's a line that sent a lot of cultures. As long as there is one person on earth who remembers you it isn't over and a lot of these songs make me remember a lot of things others make me wish for other things others make me celebrate a lot of things but I guess more than anything it there are there about finding the light for me. Some of them are very ironical and it's easy to you know go down the dark road with some of these songs but I look at it one day and I went. And I hit the light switch and I just flipped that switch and I went make all of them the opposite of that no matter how much they are dragging you down that rabbit hole force your way out kick it Bruce Coburn said kick at the darkness to live bleeds daylight Yeah there you go is pretty good hey yeah speaking of songs meaning remembrances Can we play the Can we play the 1st song we have. The moment she. Say that line again when you get a look at the darkness leads daylight outside the. Minute. There's a crack in everything that's how the like it's. Pretty good. Also what are we listening to right now Mandy. It's a oh what a circus oh what is a good deed you seem 79 so in the spirit of songs giving you memories and being like prayers are being like meditations that's used what I like here and that sort of thoughts come to mind oh my lord it was I remember where you were at 20th Century Fox Studios where we recorded it I remember reading in the commissary with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice remember my wife was my fiance that I just met and and I remember that I was 25 years old and it was a fun thing to do that day and. Many lifetimes ago in a life changing one I mean that's the thing I mean I said this is someone the other day how often do you get do here the moment your life changed how often do you get to how many people have that privilege you know yeah it's funny I would never think of that as the moment that my life changed although it certainly was the moment that brought me out to a larger audience yes but the moments for me where my life changed was when I met my wife Katherine grody 40 years ago April 16th 1st 8978 and when I saw my 1st son Isaac you know why I saw him 1st when he came into this world and and my 2nd son Gideon those were the life changing moments for me when I . When I when my father passed away and I was sitting by his bed waiting for hours for his final breath and and it was it was magical it wasn't. It was it was a resting you know I'm not one of these who people you know like but there was an energy in that room in Miami Tiger was there who died at 103 years later but I thought my Grandpa Max when named after his he predicts name was Menachem Mendel I swear I never met him because I'm named after him I was the 1st one born after he after he died and I thought it was in the room and the room was so charged and so it I just never experienced such electricity in a place and it bonded Miami me forever so those were life changing moments for me right this was just a song. But I am I am really interested and I want to talk about some of the stuff the stuff you just mentioned in just a 2nd but I am I am really interested in how when you're a musician and when you're inspired by music how it can affect the rest of your life you know I don't talk with us too much I'm a musician I do this job I'm always thinking about what does that do right and for someone like you I want to play another clip Take a listen to the to the humbling clip to. If you want others see. Like a terrorist in your bed. My whole life I'd like you. Great song how does it feel. The smartest in the dumbest person ever known that was my guess many intelligence agents Berenson in the t.v. Series Homeland with his costar Claire Danes and I'm just trying to figure out what Claire is talking about when she said Mandy is a really musical person and he plays with that in the way he delivers the lines but I think that the way I learn music or words is I go over them hundreds and hundreds of times for hours and days and weeks and I listen to them and I have had they have no meaning initially and little by little I just start to literally my mouth and everything starts my body starts to memorize the word the forming of and then I begin later to have thoughts with them and then it's way I it's the way I rehearse and choose and so then I'll have a thought that marries itself or connects it self whatever the song writer wrote or the or the script writer wrote to something that I'm connected to in my life visceral or in my imagination really or in my wishes or my dreams and I and my my game is to marry my imaginative connective tissue thoughts to what the writers wrote that close enough so that it makes me alive and it makes me connected and so that's how I learned the music of it and because of that rehearsing and that repetition as I begin to find over that idea I don't like this one I like I'm going to keep hold of this a better idea or 3 days that with this a better idea why I can't believe I didn't think that idea oh my God that's what it is and you know those are days and weeks later and then I go in front of the camera on the idea because I've done all that homework is now you can forget about it my wife always says when we talk to you know younger people said. You know. She said she gave the greatest note to me when she said Mandy and I said I was groggy to go out on an opening night of Secret Garden in New York and Broadway and I said I just I just want her some her she says me and you know this guy just forget about it go how they're listen to the words and see where they take you and I think that is the most difficult thing to do but you can do it if you're a workaholic Aurora nervous aholic. Her so much that I've gone through the possibilities and therefore I then can say Ok forget about it and now be with you who is my fellow actor with that day with what just happened in your life my life the world that day and we say those words we've been rehearsing or doing for months or in some cases years which are called classical songs that you sing hundreds and hundreds of times and so why today does it connect to you because you're listening to it and because it's usually written so simply that it has a life that's endless. I'm going to play some notes for you take a listen. So that he's found. The latest. Think. You're on to me but if you don't hots home. What's more. Punishment. This month. Monique was this week. Home I guess Mandy Patinkin singing a song by. In some ways the greatest American songwriter Maybe Randy Newman so long dad from his new record children are we were talking earlier and I prefer to have it as a life changing moment for you when you said well you know it's not really life changing moments are when I met my wife or my kids were born or when my father passed I can't help it he must have thought you must have it on your mind when you receiving that this is a song for him with my dad and bring him back and. And make and him be there forever and I love this song that's a beautiful one I am a bit moved by it to be honest I'm going kind of went through something similar myself you know and there and you're kind of always hoping for an opportunity to dream about them right hoping that the Shylock that are saying that you know what I mean later I know exactly what you mean would be great if they showed up. They do show up as I said before as long as there's one person on earth who remembers who it is and over so you talk about them they're there I remember my dad died when I was 18 I'm like I think we had a cancer and 6 years or so went by and I hadn't had the dream then one day I had this dream I was playing a heart surgeon and I was picked up by real heart surgeon in this movie the doctor that bill hurt and I did and we were he was taking me to a sports event and I just had this dream and I said I just had to stream my father had been waiting 6 years for this tree and it was so real that I you know I literally went to this place like who is going to prove to me that my dream is any less real than this conversation I'm having with you why can't that be just as real Yeah it was so vivid in my dream but I there was some else I wanted to tell you Oh I know what it was I was doing a play it was rebel women and I want to cross the street to the colonnades cafe and this is I'm about I hadn't met my wife yet so I'm 21 to 3 and a guy walks up to me after the play and I have the scene with Peter Weller where you know and it's a father son play but it was during the Civil War and Peter and I had this scene together and and and it's about loss and a guy walks up to me and I'm 20 something 23 so and a guy walks up to me who's in his fifty's and he says Can I ask he says I saw the play I said Yeah he said Can I ask you something I said sure did did did you is your father alive I said No How long ago did you lose your phone I said 6 years. And I was a pause and I looked at this much older man I said Is your father alive now how long ago did you lose your father 6 days ago and I said wow. I said you know and I told the story about the stream I had and I'd been waiting 6 years to have this stream and I felt so Rob because I was such a crazy kid so manic and energetic and. Didn't listen enough and didn't take time and was robbed of the time with my dad I was 18 and you didn't get to know him the way when he said let me tell you something I'm 55 I just lost my dad you feel that way when you're 55 or 65 or 75 or 2424 I said thank you I said so we do the best we can that's good you know I don't know how much I want to talk about this but I have felt that way I got you know I when else got more time you know 24 but it doesn't matter you know you get 60 years you know but that's the gift of your imagination and if you believe that and see my connection to God Yeah and I'm not a you know I'm a spiritual guide but I'm I'm Sciences my connection so Einstein's theory of relativity I get meaning energy never dies back to what I said in the beginning when my dad died and that energy that electricity in that room so I believe that you can be in this space the air you breathe that it exists because that energy isn't what you want to are looking at or what we're listening to or the car the radio or wherever you are it is a different form but that energy exists forever just like light doesn't just like sound does so therefore if you want to breathe in Jesus or Buddha or Moses or your dad or my dad or anybody you knew there are available they're all around us they're all around you and that that to me is science others will say that's religion and I go fine I can't literally define either one of them nor can I define love. Which is everything religion love science is everything I don't understand. I'm going to have some kind of nap after this interview by the way I'm going to need some kind of can we bring in a person are there still persons can be really when you when you go through some of these Singer-Songwriter thing yeah or or guys like Steve Sondheim or even or Irving Berlin or Ronnie Musgrove Hammerstein Randy Newman Well singer songwriters you know all those guys now you know these guys I'm just the mailman these guys are the geniuses they are plugged into a kind of simplistic poetry that is so available and timeless Yeah it's undeniable but like but like you say when it came to enroll I what I find I'm still kind of reeling from is that you need to know the pieces so well and I'm taking it's the same case with the music that you feel so attached to with a personal experience or a thought or an emotion that even though you are the mailman you're your existing within the framework in which they wrote that music you are also that music my favorite word is connect that's what the pine wrote for sun in the Park With George he had me say it over never going to connect George connect if you're connected to the woman you meet the man you meet the child you have the friend your student the world you're alive. You're just alive could be the last song of the last clip from 9 Psalm can you keep it up for me. Just. Be. Me. It's my guess many taken singing to be of use from his new album children are so. We started by talking about asked about music gave us a child and you told me the story of seeing these older say older men yes you know how to be men might be feeling when younger than me not feeling such deep emotions and reverence and in tears in to the music we talk a lot about the power of music and you said that it's the best way to pray it's amazing way to to pray music out of it when you listen to something like that when you sing these songs now does it still feel like that to you yeah it's. It's a funny thing music I guess that's why Shakespeare said of music be the food of love plan on it and it's a universal language and and that's the air going in and out of you if you're a singer and you can't help but feel better than when you started and it's just recovers you and and and and you know. I always like playing characters that have accents because it's easier to hide behind the accent therefore it's like a mask and therefore I'm freer to express Well that's what music is because I'm not singing this interview to you we're talking to each other on a pitch granted but we're not singing you know literally we can we could but that's singing it is a step from reality and that's a mask Therefore I find it freeing to be truer to. What you know and what you have no idea that's coming Well I mean we're all coming to the theater we're It may include ing me to get away from it for a few minutes you know and to go to something else that's a bit more comforting that's one of the reasons I love doing these concerts more than anything in the world is because these songs these stories these lyrics they speak to me and it's really comforting to feel that I'm not alone that other people like to listen to them along with me and that's in so you don't feel alone well that's that's what our can do. Bring us back to our happiest moments are can make us feel better it can give us you can live in her lives I can't let you go without playing the clip can we can we play that for him. My name is you know you. Might. Remember your smile and they play that Anyway I was I was unsure how that was going to go I love it I can never get over when people bring it up that I got to be the guy in that movie on my turf and from that person's right yeah I just I love that people love that film I loved it it was and I just had the best time being with Andre all that time was beautiful and I'm always thrilled that people love it and generations you know we're here for 5 seconds and if you're if you get lucky and something good happens to you in any area of this minuscule life you know enjoy it and I say that to myself as much as I say it to anybody because my best friend he stayed alive to say goodbye to my wife and myself and he will eat a lifted himself out of that took that one spoonful of morphine and he looked at us with wide eyes and he said the hardest thing in the world to do have fun even if there are many thinking they talk to you to talk to you. Thank you Mandy Patinkin is a legendary actor and singer you might know him from The Princess Bride you might know him from home land these days he's performing more on stage his new album children and art is out now and if you're interested you can catch Mandy performing tomorrow evening Thursday night at the edge of Mirvish Theater in downtown Toronto Ontario if you didn't for something to watch we're going to talk about that coming up right after this on Q. One Take a Collyer began making music he did it all by himself but over time he's come to include other people in his process the challenge that's come is bridging the gap between my universe and all of us as you know us without the