Waiting on the Moon: Artists, Poets, Drifters, Grifters, and Goddesses

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness, substance use, addiction, and death.

Throughout Peter’s memoir, music is a central motif. Music is the foundation of his career as well as an emotional, historical, and cultural web that connects his experiences and formed the artist he became. Growing up with a father who was a singer and record store owner, music was always part of Peter’s life. His early exposure to musicians like Louis Armstrong and Muddy Waters, combined with the influence of figures like Bob Dylan, shaped his understanding of music’s power to move the human spirit and connects to the theme of The Creative Drive Within Humans.

Peter often reflects on how music transcends both time and space, as in his recollection of Hank Williams’s song “I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You,” which reminds him of Faye all these years later: “When I hear Hank Williams sing [that song] I am right back on that New York City sidewalk, an invisible observer of the woman I once loved” (242). Similarly, there was undeniable emotional power in performing “A Change Is Gonna Come” with Aretha Franklin and many others at a concert to celebrate Sam Cooke.