Encouragement through music

Renown songwriter uses success to help youth

BY LELAND ACKER

Songwriter Steve Seskin performs for elementary school students at the Rusk High School Auditorium. Seskin's 1998 hit, Don't Laugh at Me, has become the anthem for efforts to curb school bullying.

He wrote hit songs for Neal McCoy, Collin Raye, John Michael Montgomery and Tim McGraw, but when Mark Wills made a hit with Don’t Laugh at Me, the songwriting career of Steve Seskin would never be the same.

Don’t Laugh at Me hit the country charts in 1998, peaking at number two and was named Music Row Magazine’s Song of the Year in 1999. Folk group Peter, Paul and Mary later recorded the song and it became the force behind the Operation Respect/Don’t Laugh at Me project, a curriculum designed to teach tolerance in schools.

Mr. Seskin, a resident of San Francisco, said he wrote the hit with fellow songwriter Alan Shamblin after Alan’s daughter came home from school upset.

“They had moved from Texas to Tennessee, she was redheaded and the kids at school were calling her ‘carrot top,’” he said. “Alan and I talked about our own lives. We could still remember times when people picked on us in school. That’s where the song was born.”

Mr. Seskin has spent the years following the success of Don’t Laugh at Me visiting schools, raising awareness of bullying in schools.

“The schools’ position on bullying used to be, ‘it’s part of life, grow up,’” he said. “Now, schools are more proactive about teaching kids to treat each other nicely. It’s amazing the effect a three-minute song can have.”

Mr. Seskin said people have told him how they related to the song because of their personal experience with bullies.

“Every once in a while, a kids will come up and say, ‘I’m a bully,’” he said. “We need to help people who are bullies. There is a reason some people are bullies. I’m not saying we can end it, but we can put a dent in it.

“Now-days, schools are more diverse. Kids have to understand that and not be fearful of it.”

Mr. Seskin’s presentations at schools are not a performance of his greatest hits. In fact, most adults would recognize the songs he sings from their childhoods. He uses the songs he sings to teach tolerance and mutual respect to the students who sit in the auditorium.

“Hey, let’s treat each other nicely,” he said about the theme of his songs.

Mr. Seskin performed before two groups of students at the Rusk High School Auditorium Feb 7.

Some of his greatest hits include Neal McCoy’s No Doubt About It, Collin Raye’s I Think About You, John Michael Montgomery’s Life’s a Dance and Tim McGraw’s Grown Men Don’t Cry.

“I like to write about issues that are important in people’s lives,” he said.

While No Doubt About It is a love song, I Think About You deals with a father coming to grips with the fact that his eight-year-old daughter will one day become a woman who is gawked at by older men. Life’s a Dance deals with the idea that sometimes, you just have to go after your dreams. Grown Men Don’t Cry deals with a man’s desire to not show emotion while being overcome by life’s circumstances. All four songs were major hits on the country charts.