Join Marian and Anchorage songwriter Vinter.Baer for luminous lucky tunes on Friday the 13th. Reserve a seat here to receive the address. Limited space available, $20-30 per person recommended, pay-as-you-can. All ages welcome.
(Interested in a Marian Call house concert? Currently booking in Juneau, Anchorage, Fairbanks, and the Seattle area. Get in touch)
I’ve written a song that’s so simple it feels like it already should have existed. But here it is, not fancy, not produced, more suited for singing in the streets than on an album. It’s outraged. It’s clear. It’s motivated by love.
This song is being released directly into the public domain, so my purpose here is to share it, not to sell it. This is what it sounds like, just a little unmastered demo:
You can find the score for the very simple harmonies right here. You can also write your own, because this song is free to use, free to record, even free to sell. It’s in the public domain.
I got to perform this song with my friends Cate Ross and Kelsey Riker at the Alaska Folk Festival (just as my voice was starting to crackle and short out completely from a long week of singing). It brought out the passion in all of us, and it struck a chord with the audience, who were singing along by the end.
The world is very complicated, but some things are simple. I was raised to love my neighbor. I hope you were too.
Hi — this is Marian.
I have a little song I’ve been singing a lot lately, in public places. I’ve been thinking about how to release it. After a lot of thinking, I’ve decided this is the way. I’m releasing it into the public domain.
It’s called “The Boulder,” but my friends affectionately refer to it as Heave ho, bitches. I wrote it in 2023, but nobody properly heard it until 2025. It isn’t long:
Now we all push together
We might not agree how far
But we all know which direction
gets us closer than we are
And we know we’re burnin’ daylight
with each second we don’t start
Every shoulder to the boulder, here we go — heave ho!
Every shoulder to the boulder; time to go.
This audio is the original voice memo I used to start teaching the song to my friends, sharing it for protest singalongs, and so on. It’s a simple song that feels good to sway to, good to march to.
I sing with Queens, a women’s choir in Juneau. They invited me to arrange it with some harmonies, so I did, and the ensemble performed it at the 49th Alaska Folk Festival last April. Audio of that performance (as played over the radio) is below, and you can find the score here if you’re curious.
My friend Josh Fortenbery and I have some strong feelings about billionaires throwing down millions in local elections.
We co-wrote this song to purge our feelings about $1.5 million getting dropped by one man to repeal Alaska’s open primaries, campaign contribution limits, and campaign finance transparency rules. We only know that he put that much money into our election BECAUSE of the transparency laws that Prop. 2 would repeal.
That face I make at the end? That’s me thinking about this nonsense.
Alaskans, vote No on Prop 2. Stick it to some billionaires. To everyone else: let’s look at what unaccountable, corrupt, greedy people want and tell them No.
You can see Josh’s version of our song here on Instagram. We invite covers and new versions of this song, just like Alaskan artists Ted, Alex Cruver, and the Pedal Boys have created! Chords and lyrics can be found here.