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Seth Swirsky (born August 5, 1960 in New Haven, Connecticut) is an American pop songwriter, author, recording artist and noted baseball memorabilia collector.
Songwriter
After graduating from Dartmouth College in 1982, Seth Swirsky wrote the Grammy-nominated worldwide hit Tell It To My Heart (with Ernie Gold) for Taylor Dayne. The song spent six months on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart in 1988, reaching #7 (gold single pictured left). It was a #1 hit in Germany and Sweden and #3 in England. In 2002, Kelly Llorenna’s version of the song went to #9 on the British charts. The song won an ASCAP songwriter’s award for being one of the most performed songs of the year. He also wrote Dayne's follow-up top ten hit, Prove Your Love (with Arnie Roman). That song was a #7 Billboard pop hit as well as a #1 dance hit. It too was a top ten hit around the world, reaching #1 in Switzerland, #4 in Germany and #8 in England.
Swirsky wrote, Love Is A Beautiful Thing, which was recorded by Al Green for his 1993 album Your Heart's in Good Hands. The song also appears on his 2002 Love, The Essential Al Green Greatest Hits Collection. It was Green's last charted single (#56 in the U.K.). The song was originally written for and recorded by Charles & Eddie on their 1991 debut album, Duophonic. Al Green's version was featured in the movies The Pallbearer (1996), Legally Blonde (2001), Sorority Boys (2002) and Two Weeks Notice (2002). His version was also used as Revlon's theme song in their international ad campaign in 2004. Tina Turner's version of the same song (it has been recorded by numerous artists) was on the 5-million selling Princess Diana Tribute Album in 1997.
Swirsky also composed Instant Pleasure for Rufus Wainwright (which was featured in Adam Sandler's biggest grossing movie, Big Daddy (1999)), Did You Give Enough Love (with Arnie Roman) for Celine Dion (a top 20 song in Canada), Tear It Up (with Gardner Cole) for Michael McDonald, After All for Air Supply, Not Gonna Be The One for Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits album, Back to Basics: The Essential Collection, 1971-1992 (which reached #2 in Australia and #12 in the U.K.) and Christmas Lullaby for Faith Evans.
Mariah Carey Plagiarism Lawsuit
In 2000, Swirsky, along with co-writer Warryn Campbell, filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against singer Mariah Carey claiming that Carey plagiarized Swirsky and Campbell's song "One of Those Love Songs" when writing "Thank God I Found You". Swirsky and Campbell wrote their song for Xscape's 1998 platinum album, "Traces of My Lipstick." The case was originally dismissed by Ninth Circuit Court Judge Christina Snyder in 2002, but was later overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a precedent setting decision (known as Swirsky v. Carey) clarifying the standard for proving copyright infringement. The case is believed to have been settled out of court.
Singer
In 2005, Seth Swirsky's own album, Instant Pleasure won Best Pop Album at the Los Angeles Music awards. Guest appearances on the 11-song album include Andy Sturmer of Jellyfish, The Rembrandts, Michael Chavez of John Mayer's band and Justin Meldal-Johnson of Beck. The album was produced by Jewel's drummer, Dorian Crozier. Numerous cuts from Instant Pleasure were featured on XM50 The Loft's prestigious In Spite Of All The Danger series.
Swirsky's new album of pop songs, She's About to Cross My Mind, (recorded with Mike Ruekberg under the group name The Red Button) came out in January, 2007.
Author
In 1996, the first of Swirsky's three bestselling books was published, Baseball Letters (Crown Books). This book consisted of his handwritten correspondences with Major League baseball players including Ted Williams, Cal Ripken, Jr. and Whitey Ford. Swirsky's second book, Every Pitcher Tells A Story (Times Books, 1999) contained his correspondences with Major League baseball pitchers, including Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens and Tom Glavine. The final book in this trilogy, Something to Write Home About (Random House, 2003), consisted not only of letters from ballplayers, but from fans of the game as well like Sir Paul McCartney, President George W. Bush, President George H. W. Bush, Senator Ted Kennedy, Tim Russert, Peter Tork (of the Monkees) and Bob Costas.
Swirsky is currently working on something he calls a "bookumentary" (half book, half documentary) entitled Beatles Stories, which consists of on-camera and telephone interviews he's conducted with people who have a story about themselves and The Beatles. Participating in the project thus far are Brian Wilson, Luci Baines Johnson, Moody Blues member Justin Hayward, journalist Cameron Crowe, Beatles engineers Norman Smith and Ken Scott, Denny Laine of Wings, The Doors' Ray Manzarek, The Mamas and the Papas' Denny Doherty, Herman Hermits' Peter Noone, Klaus Voormann, Billy J. Kramer, Spencer Davis, Felix Cavaliere of The Young Rascals, America's Gerry Beckley, Bob Eubanks, original Quarryman (John Lennon's first band) Rod Davis, journalist Robert Lipsyte, rock photographer Henry Diltz, writer-director Nora Ephron and many more.
Swirsky, a self-described conservative, writes articles for RealClearPolitics.com , The HuffingtonPost.com , PoliticalMavens.com and others, in which he has expressed admiration for many of the policies and actions of the Bush administration. In October, 2006, a Tribe entitled "The Tao of Seth" was created on tribe.net in order to archive and discuss "the Wisdoms of Seth," which consists mainly of Swirsky's posts on the US Politics Tribe. He also writes articles for PaperbackWalrus.com .
Baseball
Swirsky's baseball collection includes the ball that went between Bill Buckner's legs in the 1986 World Series, Reggie Jackson's 3rd home run ball from the 1977 World Series, a ball signed by The Beatles the night they played Shea Stadium in 1965, Tom Seaver's 1969 World Series jersey and the letter written by Baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis banning Shoeless Joe Jackson from playing Major League Baseball. Many pieces in the collection were featured in baseball retrospectives at the Queens Museum of Art and the Bronx Museum of Art, in 2004.
Film
In 2007, Swirsky's film, The Last Giant, which is based on the reminiscences of 1930s baseball all-star, Harry "The Horse" Danning, was a Finalist in the D.C. International Film Festival.
Media
Seth Swirsky's works have been written about in The New York Times (Week In Review), Newsweek, and People Magazine among others. USAToday did a feature story on him in 1997. He’s also been a guest on many major talk shows including The Today Show, Good Morning America and Fox News. In 1999, PBS did a piece on Swirsky and his various pursuits called The Passion of Play.
Personal
Swirsky is married to Jody Gerson, who is the Executive Vice President, U.S. Creative, of EMI Music and a movie producer (Drumline, ATL). Her father, Charles Gerson, was the owner of the legendary Philadelphia nightclub, Latin Casino. Jody and Seth have three children.
Trivia
- Charlie Sheen was the original owner of the Buckner ball. Keith Olbermann was the underbidder to both Sheen and Swirsky.
- Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's wedding song was Swirsky's Love Is A Beautiful Thing.
- At the age of 20, in 1980, Swirsky wrote the national jingle for Thomas' Toaster Cakes English Muffins.
- The house Seth grew up in Great Neck, New York was once lived in by Rube Goldberg, best known for his famed complex devices that performed tasks in very indirect and convoluted ways.
External links
- Seth.com - Seth.com - The Official Seth Swirsky website. Music, writings, his baseball collection, etc.
- Read an interview with Seth on Netshrine.com.
- Newsday: The Buckner Ball, August 16, 2006
- Read an interview with The Red Button
- Myspace page for The Red Button
- Seth Swirsky Archives at the Huffngton Post.com
- Seth Swirsky Archives at RealclearPolitics.com
- Seth's Myspace page