This is New Wisco Weekend. I'm Lisa Hale. We're wrapping up this edition with one mother's
take on being prepared. Marta Hansen is also a musician who puts her thoughts into songs.
One in particular she hopes will lead to keeping schools safe from gun violence. Here's Terry
Barr with the story behind this emotional song.
So happy to welcome and musician, Marta Hansen.
And Marta we just heard that very emotional song bang bang.
What can you tell us about it? We obviously have a lot of gun violence in the United States and
the part of it that affects me the most is sending my kids to school and I wrote this song about
that feeling that I'm sure all parents get, myself included. It's that feeling that when we drop
them off every day hoping they'll be safe at school and I wrote that that song about that
feeling of every single day when I drop them off that little that little part of me that worries
needing them to come home and come home safe and that's a worry that every parent feels every
time we take our kids to school every single day. It's a heavy song. It is and every time I listen
to it I hear something in addition to what I've already heard. Our theme for the show is
prepared. But I know we can't really prepare for something like a shooting at a school.
But do you feel a song like this maybe at least can take us into a discussion about it?
I do. That's what we do as musicians right as we try to start conversations and we try to get
people to think and to feel and to connect. The way I wrote this song and the lyrics is really
heavy thing that actually happens that shouldn't feel normal and shouldn't be normal. Mixed
in with this normalcy of dropping your kid off at school every day like have a good day. I love
you. That's this normal thing and it's mixed with this really bad thing. I don't think we should
become complacent and I don't think that we should accept that this is normal. And I hope that
this song can bring about some conversations about how we can change that, how we can create
a safer place for not just our kids but for the teachers. For everybody who goes into a school
building or any public space and I hope that a conversation can happen or that people can
listen to it and they just maybe feel motivated to get up and do something or to say something and
just you know become active in the conversation around it. I like you said music can be powerful.
What do you find in your music? How do you feel that it relates to people and they can listen to
any of your songs really and feel something from your songs? I struggle with writing fiction.
I do a little bit here and there but really everything I write always comes from some sort of
personal experience or is some sort of personal connection that I've had. All my lyrics are about
something whether it's being a woman, being a mom, seeing what's on the news, being there's
going to be something in all of my music that somebody's like oh I live that. I live that every day
or I feel that or I saw that and I feel like it helps people feel left alone.
I am talking with musician Marta Hanson. Now you kind of had to get yourself prepared recently
for a little change in what you do professionally. What are you doing now and how is that going?
It's going great. You know it was a really big change. I basically for 11 years I've been
wearing many professional hats, piano technician, music store owner, bookkeeper, piano teacher,
music teacher and you know retail owner all of this stuff. For the last couple of years the
piano tuning side, the piano technician side of my business has become completely full time.
All on its own that everything else that came with running a brick and mortar store got to be
too much stress very thin, feeling like I just wasn't present enough with my family.
And so I decided to make a huge change and close the brick and mortar and focus 100% on tuning
and repair. When it opens up more time for me to focus on music too. You know I've always
snuck it in where I can and now I can actually devote some real real time to making music,
creating music. If people want to find out more about you, where can they go to learn more about
Marta Hanson? For my piano tuning business, just the pianogalshop.com and then on the performing
music side of things, my songwriting, you can go to martahansonmusic.com and that's where I have
you know samples of my music, links to my socials, my Spotify. All right we are going to leave
with your song ghosts. Marta what can you tell us about this song? I'm a pretty reflective person.
I think a lot and ghosts is really about growth. Will you let your past be something that helps you grow
as a person helps you learn helps you become a better person or will you let them drag you back?
Prolific as we go into the song and as we've been talking about being prepared or trying to be
as prepared as you can no matter what you do. Marta thank you so much for joining us today.
My pleasure. Thank you for having me Terry. Marta Hanson and her song Ghosts.
Ghosts of the past are roaming free. There are them, they're hunting you, they're hunting me.
Stuck inside our heads to make us feel so foolish. We're not moving on. We're stuck in
a laboratory knowing that our ghosts have let us down. They're wrong way, they're wrong way,
wrong way down. They're wrong way, they're wrong way, wrong way down. All we lost, we
be found. All we lost, we be found. All we lost, we be found. We learn from Ghosts.
Thank you so much for being a part of New Wisco Weekend. You're
looking at the stories and issues facing Northeast Wisconsin. New Wisco Weekend is produced by
Todd Michaels written and directed by Lisa Hale featuring Terry Barr with correspondence Melissa
Kay, Pete Schwabba and commentator Amanda Nimmer. Special appearance is this week by John
Mino and Jim Schmidt. If you have a story you'd like to hear covered, please feel free to email me
anytime. Lisa.Hale at civicmedia.us. I'm civic media Northeast Wisconsin Bureau Chief Lisa Hale
for WGBW and WISS News. The Unstoppable.