Orrin Hatch – Songwriter

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The stuff you find out about people never ceases to amaze me.  Jeffrey Goldberg has a great Orrin Hatch story.

Ten years ago, I visited Orrin Hatch, the senior senator from Utah and a prominent member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, on Capitol Hill. I was writing for The New York Times Magazine and Hatch was thinking of running for president. We talked about politics for a few minutes, and then he said, “Have you heard my love songs?”

No senator had asked me that question before. It turned out that Hatch was a prolific songwriter, not only of love songs, but of Christian spirituals as well. We spent an hour in his office listening to some of his music, a regular Mormon platter party. After five or six Christmas songs, I asked, him, “What about Hanukkah songs? You have any of those?”

Orrin Hatch and love songs?  Wow. Who would of guessed.  According to Goldberg, nine years after asking Hatch (a Mormon) to write a Hanukkah song, the Senator came through.

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So a Mormon senator writes a Hanukkah song, performed by an Arab singer surrounded by Jewish vocalists.   All very cool.  None of this, of course, releases Hatch from dick status. I think he’s stuck with that label for as long as he says stuff like this.

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