A few months ago I wrote a song about Stalin’s wife’s suicide after reading and being being shocked about Red Famine, a book by Anne Applebaum and the unrelenting facts about the Holodomor courtesy of Stalin, whose wife’s maternal side was Ukrainian. Shot herself in the heart. Stalin told Russians (and their children) she had an appendix attack. Cool guy Stalin. Red Famine destroyed me, partly because being Jewish and raised in Hebrew schools learning lots about various international efforts to exterminate the people I come from, it was like a parallel universe I knew nothing about. These are aspects of human nature, anytime, anywhere. When I read Crime and Punishment, wondered if the kind of inner guilt and terror that Raskolnikov was haunted by, was true. Now, older than when first pronouncing Russian character names, I think it’s a toss up. Stalin or Hitler weren’t bothered by the starvation, the rapes, the endless violent nightmares brought about by them, nor were many in their circles. Like the famous writing of the pastor Niemöler (first they came) but others do go down the crime and punishment path. Songwriting really can do repair magic.