DAN PALLOTTA – “SCHOOL BUS”
INDEPENDENT
New England singer-songwriter Dan Pallotta continues his recent series of singles, which began in 2024, with “School Bus,” a reflective folk ballad that tells the story of an entire lifetime in just three and a half minutes.
The inspiration for the song came during a morning walk, when Pallotta witnessed a school bus pass by.
“I thought about the days when my kids would wave to me from the bus on that very same walk,” Pallotta shares. “I figured I should write a song about the kids on the bus, but as I started writing, I realized the story I wanted to tell wasn’t about the kids at all—it was about the woman driving the bus. Once I shifted focus to her, the lyrics came together in about ten minutes.”
With the school bus driver as the narrator, Pallotta’s lyrics offer a poignant glimpse into a life well-lived, filled with simple joys, family, and the cyclical passage of time.
The song’s production reflects the introspective nature of the lyrics, with Pallotta using atmospheric background elements to add emotion and build momentum. The cyclical guitar part echoes the turning wheels of the bus, symbolizing the passage of time—seasons, years, and lives going round and round.
Dan Pallotta has been writing songs for forty years, but took about a thirty-year break in the middle to create the AIDSRides, the Breast Cancer 3-Day walks, and the Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention walks. 182,000 people took part in one of these epic, heroic journeys, which raised nearly $600 million in nine years—more money raised more quickly for those causes than any events in history, and were the subject of a Harvard Business School case study.
In September 2023, the Stephen Gyllenhaal-directed documentary film adaption of Pallotta’s book, Uncharitable, was released, which advocates for liberating the nonprofit sector to its true potential. It features Edward Norton, and the heads of TED, the Ford Foundation, the Nature Conservancy, Charity:Water and many other organizations. Pallotta’s TED talk on charity is the 16th most commented TED talk of all time. He has written five books, served on two school boards, sang the national anthem at a Los Angeles Rams game, and did not forget the words!
Pallotta’s music and his commitment to making a difference in the world are inseparable. He writes songs about the human condition— as experienced across all manners of circumstance— in an effort to connect people through a recognition that we are not alone in the strange things we observe and feel in this mystery we call life.
ARTIST QUOTE
“It’s about a life well-lived. A good relationship, kids living independent lives, no hoopla, just the simple, extraordinary journey of an average person in a world of movers and shakers.”
Dan Pallotta
[Single]
(Independent)
Release Date: February 26, 2024
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