The Kitchen Musician ~ October 2026

Hello Friends,

I have a big show to tell you about, and a new love song inspired by a conversation with my daughter. Join me in the kitchen!

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Index

  NEWS:
  THIS MONTH’S MUSIC: “I’m Falling in Love”
  UPCOMING SHOWS
  FEATURED NON-PROFIT: Fight Back with a Song!

News:

In spite of holding our second “Fight Back with a Song!” concert in the middle of a raging nor’easter storm, we had a nearly full house and raised some funds for Democratic candidates. Our goal is to flip control of Congress in November. So far concert #2 has raised $8001 (and still growing). Combining that with the $12,561 Concert #1 raised, it takes us up to $20,562! Our concert partner Force Multiplier has created special donation links (one for the House and one for the Senate) so you just have to donate once and your donation is divided among all of the Democratic candidates in competitive races (27 House races, and 7 Senate races.) A big benefit for using our donate links is that your personal information is not shared with the candidates, so you will not receive follow-up contacts from them. We will keep these links active until election day, November 3rd 2026. Please join us by donating at Fight Back with a Song. Big thanks to our co-sponsor, Nashoba Indivisible. We have posted a video of the full concert at this link.

Check out this big show coming up in Needham on October 17th! (below)

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UPCOMING SHOWS

Oct. 17, Saturday, Needham, MA, 7:30 pm. Cosy Sheridan and I return to the venerable Homegrown Coffeehouse, assisted by Charlie Koch and Seth Connelly. We had a full house last time we played here two years ago, and this should be another great one. If there is one Tom Smith show to attend this year, this would be it. Join us! More info and tickets at this link.

Nov. 8, Sunday, Northampton, MA, 4:00 pm. Songwriter showcase with Dave Dersham at Ana Bandeira Chocolates. UPDATE: This show may have to be rescheduled. Contact me to confirm before making your plans.

All show details can be found at upcoming shows.

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This Month’s Music: “I’m Falling in Love”

I’m the kind of person who can sometimes over-analyze decisions I have to make. For the important ones, I sometimes use a decision matrix, a tool I used in my engineering days. What should I buy; a banjo, mandolin, or accordion? I put the options across the top of the page – “banjo”, “mandolin”, and “accordion”. Then I list the considerations down the left side – “cost”, “resale value”, “fit for my concerts”, “difficulty to learn”, etc. On each line, I enter a value from 1 to 5 to rank the options against each other. I might even give each consideration a weighting factor from 1 to 5, depending on how important it is, then multiply each entry in the matrix by the weighting factor. Finally, I add each column and make my decision based on which option gets the best score.

Well… not exactly! Usually I add one line at the bottom to reflect my heart’s preference; then I give that a value which overwhelms all of the other values. This is especially so for important life decisions; but the exercise leading up to that can flush out the consequences of a truly foolish choice.

Recently, my daughter Mally told us about an important decision she made. Our conversation inspired this month’s new song. Of course I was projecting my own nerdy process onto my daughter’s decision, though she has told me that the song does speak to the core struggle for important decisions like this… and the chorus is that one emotional line at the bottom of the matrix that overrides all other considerations.

“Just look at that face!
I have fallen in love.”

Sing on!

Tom

(If so inclined, I invite you to leave a comment by scrolling to the end of this page.)

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Featured Non-profit: Fight Back with a Song

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” – Anne Frank

Fight Back with a Song is a grass roots effort organized to leverage the power of music in support of worthy organizations that work for a strong democracy, social justice and action on key progressive issues.

Please consider donating to our “Fight Back with a Song” funds, carefully researched by Force Multiplier with the goal of supporting candidates in key races that have the potential of flipping control of Congress to Democrats in the interim election. When you donate, your personal information will not be shared with the candidates, so you will not receive followup communications from them. These links will remain active until election day, Nov. 3, 2026.

Note: While Force Multiplier does have non-profit status projects, these specific donations go to candidates and are therefore not tax deductible.

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