Q: Thank you for doing this. It means a lot! So, what inspired you to compose “The Graduation Song (As the Years Keep Rolling By)”?
ELDERMAN: I used to write funny songs for my oldest sister’s birthday, and she found them so amusing that she shared some of them with her students. They then became interested in the “real” music I wrote and then asked me (through her) if I would write them a graduation song.
Q: How do you think your song captures the universal experience of graduating and moving forward in life?
ELDERMAN: I think the song expresses the emotions of leaving a place that was familiar and mixes it with the fears and anticipation of what lies ahead.
Q: What message or lesson do you hope listeners take away from “The Graduation Song”?
ELDERMAN: My hope is that the listeners remember the bonds and friendships they made and refuse to shrink back from the challenges that wait up ahead.
Q: I love how you combined jazz with some gospel elements for the song. Why is that?
ELDERMAN: I love these styles of music and felt that the emotions of the lyrics added a spiritual overtone that the gospel singers brought out well.
Q: Have you performed it at an actual graduation? Or do you want to?
ELDERMAN: I haven’t performed it yet, but the school where my sister taught at sang it for their graduation ceremonies, as did my daughter’s school.
Q: Listening to it immediately brought me back to graduating high school. I was so excited to make it out of that dump. Did the song draw up any memories or make you think of any individuals you knew back then?
ELDERMAN: Yes. I remember one of my teachers at my school telling me to make sure I said “goodbye” and “thank you” to the teachers who had meant something to me before I left school for the final time and to be sure to say “goodbye” to all of my friends at graduation—because he told me that I would never see more than 95% of them again, and he was right.
Q: What’s the next project you’re working on?
ELDERMAN: My next project is another single, titled “I Heard A Story”, a Christmas single. I just finished an album titled “Eldermann: Heritage” last fall, but I wanted to get the tune “The Graduation Song” out for the upcoming graduation season, so I recorded it as a single in March of this year.
Interviewed by Taylor Berry
