Armstrong by John Stewart

When Neil Armstrong stepped off the lunar lander onto the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, the late California singer-songwriter John Stewart -- like many of us -- watched it on television. He completed writing a song that day called 'Armstrong' that managed to celebrate the audacious celestial event while connecting it to the gritty realities of mankind's tenure on earth. Capitol Records released it as a single. But when the radio stations began to play it, there was backlash: why wasn't the song simply an adoring paean to the Apollo astronauts? Why did the singer connect it to dirty rivers and poverty in Chicago and Calcutta? Some stations, it was reported, even broke the record in half. In my mind, it is simply the finest tribute crafted about the moonwalk on that July day. The splicing in of the voices from Mission Control is my own work, and does not appear on 'Armstrong'. Read my blog on the John Stewart theatrical project: http://www.thepaintboxgarden.com/daydream-believer-the-john-stewart-songbook/ POSTSCRIPT: In a serendipitous and chance bit of magic, producers of the new IMAX film Apollo 11 listened to undiscovered footage of the astronauts going about their work and lives on the spaceship and could hear tinny music coming from Buzz Aldrin's tape deck. Though barely audible, it turned out to be 'Mother Country' from John's 1969 album 'California Bloodlines'. A visit to John's widow Buffy Ford Stewart in California secured the rights to use the song and it has become a major part of the soundtrack of the documentary.