At the beginning of “The Drama,” things are still going well between Emma (Zendaya) and Charlie (Robert Pattinson). The young and happy couple, a week away from getting married, have enjoyed a whirlwind romance. As the opening credits of this dark comedy roll, they happily practice their first dance, laughing and stumbling as they try to make the right turns and steps.
But the highlight of the scene is the song playing in the background, airy, soft and simple. Leftover guitar chords give way to a female voice that sounds unpolished but beautiful: “I want to sleep with you/In an open field/Where the yellow flowers are suns of the Earth.”
For many viewers, this will be the first time they hear “I Want to Lay With You,” one of the most beautiful love songs of the 1970s. They also likely have no idea who the singer is. Her name is Shira Small and in 1974 she recorded an incredible album, “The Line of Time and the Plane of Now,” when she was 17 years old. He never recorded another one, at least not yet. Now almost 70 years old, Small may finally be having his moment in the spotlight.
“I'm laughing out loud,” Small says over Zoom from his home in Cooperstown, New York, “because I had no idea that movie was coming out until my dear sister informed me through you.” Flashing a relaxed smile and sporting long gray hair, Small knows little about the controversial “The Drama,” an A24 film with a very cautious twist.
Robert Pattinson and Zendaya in the movie “The Drama.”
(A24)
But it's increasingly common for Small to find out after his music is featured prominently in a movie or TV show. “The record company does what they do and then they send me royalties and I receive it in a statement,” he explains. “I had a song that HBO bought for 'Pause With Sam Jay'. They sent me an email that wasn't even for me, it was an interdepartmental thing. At the bottom it said, 'Oh, by the way, it's airing tonight.'”
Jemma Burns, music supervisor for “The Drama,” had been a fan of Small’s album and thought “I Want to Lay With You” would be perfect for this idyllic scene, just before Emma and Charlie’s relationship implodes by a disturbing revelation that turns their dream wedding into a nightmare.
“I was trying to set the tone of a romantic comedy,” Burns says of the film's writer-director, Kristoffer Borgli, “one that would contrast with the modernity of the setting and where the movie takes place. I wanted something that was from a bygone era, but also something that felt incredibly charming. The two main characters are very active, modern and artistic. So it felt like something they would have had in their record collection.”
Small, the youngest of five children, always loved to sing. But even as a teenager growing up in Harlem, she felt like an old soul, and her thoughts ran deeper than those of the average child.
“My attention was focused on not understanding war, hatred and intolerance,” he says. “I was seriously interested in trying to make love happen everywhere.”
Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and the Black Power movement, Small was on his way to becoming a hippie, a transformation amplified by his enrollment in a private Quaker boarding school, George School, in Newtown, Pennsylvania, on a full scholarship. When she came to George School, Small recalls, laughing, she was “very rich and very white. But I've always been a flotation device. I can walk around like I don't have a clue about things.”
Shira Small, photographed in 1971 at George School in Newtown, Pennsylvania.
(Courtesy of Shira Small)
At George School, Small sported an afro hairstyle and smoked marijuana. She was drawn to theater and music, which impressed music teacher and classical pianist Lars Clutterham, who saw that she had talent. They worked on songs together, and Small created the lyrics and vocal melodies. Each student had to complete a senior project, so Small proposed that his be an album. Shortly after, she and Clutterham headed to a Philadelphia studio for a daylong session.
The 10 songs on “The Line of Time and the Plane of Now,” each recorded in a single take, blend folk, soul and jazz, radiating innocence. The arrangements, suffused with old-school analog warmth, are simple: guitar or piano complemented by drums, leaving plenty of room for Small's melodious voice, which contains both idealism and, even as a teenager, traces of real-life sadness.
Her mother died while she was at George School, which inspired “My Life's All Right”, a ballad about surviving hard times, which later appeared on the Sam Jay Show. “Eternal Life” emerged from her in a single burst, celebrating the power of love to transcend the harsh realities of life. As for “I Want to Lay With You” from the movie, it was about a boy Small liked. He just can't remember who anymore.
“He was someone who was both a friend and a person I was in love with,” she recalls. “I honestly felt like we could have a life together.”
Small laughs at his teenage self. “Like I knew what it would be like to have a damn life together! To be able to wake up with someone and have a beautiful day and always make them smile.”
According to Small, parents and students at George School raised money to pay for the album and 300 copies were produced. “It was a moment of joy,” he remembers. “I was on my way…somewhere!” However, after graduating, he struggled to find his footing and eventually graduated summa cum laude from the City University of New York with a degree in theater. But then she chose a career in medicine and became a physician assistant.
“When I started medical school, it was so difficult for me that I just had tunnel vision,” Small explains about why he said goodbye to music. “I had to dedicate myself completely to it. It was so all-encompassing that I couldn't think about anything else.”
But there was another reason why he walked away from music. From an early age, Small suffered from debilitating stage fright. “It was so bad that my stomach was in knots,” he recalls. He gutted it to do plays at George School and, later, record his album. However, after a while, “it got to be too much.”
Still, didn't you miss singing? “Constantly,” answers Small, who retired about five years ago from the medical profession. “I sang a lot unconsciously. My patients always noticed it; they said, 'Every time you walk in, you're singing.'”
But although Small abandoned music, “The Line of Time and the Plane of Now” never went away. In 2006, Numero Group, an archival record label, put together a compilation, “Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From the Canyon,” dedicated to unnoticed female singers of the 1970s. Numero Group co-founder Ken Shipley made sure “Eternal Life” was included.
“I was the first person to approach Shira,” he says proudly in another phone interview. Shipley heard “Eternal Life” on a CD recorded by femme-folk artists who were making the rounds in the industry at the turn of the millennium while he was putting together his “Wayfaring Strangers” poster. “Shira was one of my main needs.”
Numero Group put “Eternal Life” on Spotify in 2013. But when the label released the full album digitally in 2022, “I don't know if anyone really cared,” Shipley says. Undeterred, he reissued it on vinyl the following year. Maybe the listeners just needed time.
“Music finds a way,” Shipley says. “Music is like water. It will go down the stream to the river and into the ocean. It will find its audience.”
Sure enough, strange and fortuitous moments began to happen to Small. A future bandmate's ex had one of his songs on a playlist and had no idea it was Small. He recently started working part-time at a local opera and one of the opera singers loved “Eternal Life,” not knowing that Small was an employee.
And now royalty checks are coming in for the use of their songs in movies like “The Drama.” It still seems surreal to Small that his album would generate income. “It was never for commercial purposes,” he says. “I can't believe I'm collecting any royalties on that music and it goes on and on.”
Small's husband died in 2019 after 34 years of marriage. That made her lose control, but then something extraordinary happened. “The day I came out, the music was escaping me so fast that I couldn't keep up,” he says. “I had to walk around with a voice note. I hadn't spoken to Lars in over a decade. I sent him all these voice notes and he sent me a note: 'Shira, you still have her.'”
In 2024, he released his first song in 50 years, “Why,” which exposes his fears for the world. His voice is different, deeper, and possesses a lifetime of experiences his teenage self couldn't have imagined. Small is now preparing an album and has some shows lined up. Even better, he has overcome his stage fright.
He'll eventually perform his old songs, but he's figuring out how to reach that higher register of his youth. “I've been through decades of hormones and cigarettes and all the other things I did that I'm glad I lived through,” he says wryly.
“I still have a soft spot for yellow flowers in the open field,” he admits. “We have these huge fields of sunflowers here. The idea of being in such a beautiful place with yellow flowers brightening up a great day is what came to mind when I wrote those lyrics.”
I ask him what he thinks of that young woman he hears today in “The Timeline and the Plane of Now.”
“I know her very well,” Small responds. “Do you know why? Because she's still here. Right now, I'm everyone I've been up until this moment.
“I still feel the same way about a lot of things,” he continues. “I'm probably angrier now than I was when I was a kid, but I still have this underlying thing of looking at the bigger picture to help me keep my cover. When I think about 'Eternal Life' and 'My Life's All Right,' that music was born from my core. And my core doesn't have an age.”
