Charlie Widmer Finds A Need For ​“Love”

Charlie Widmer didn’t expect people to want to hear ​“What Do I Need With Love?” Now it’s the first of his songs some people will ever hear.

Widmer, who has performed genres ranging from opera to hip-hop to Broadway to bluegrass, wrote the song on guitar four years ago. Then he set it aside.

“It was right in the heat of [the] epidemic. Vaccines weren’t out yet. As artists, we were the first ones to lose our jobs, the last ones to get back to work,” Widmer recalled between songs during a performance on WNHH FM’s ​“Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51. (Click on the above video to watch the full performance, which opens with ​“What Do I Need With Love?”, or a highlights reel below in this story.)

“I was thinking: What if it never goes back? What if the weight of my dreams just crushes me? I felt desperate. I wrote this song and thought, ​‘I’ll never share this with anybody.’”

He did eventually share the song with fellow members of his bluegrass band On The Trail. They liked it, helped him flesh it out. Audiences started asking for the band to play it.

Then he got a chance to record a single in his native Switzerland. The song received a new treatment as a keyboard-driven pop ballad.

Now the single is out. Widmer is singing ​“What Do I Need With Love?” on the road, including at On The Trail’s gig Sunday night opening for Cousin Curtiss at Space Ballroom.

Widmer opened his three-song set on WNHH’s ​“Acoustic Thursday” with the song.

Old friend
It doesn’t seem like life’s working out
The way you dreamt
When you look around
Promises of better days don’t feel the way they should
What’s the use of going on when life is not all that good

The ​“old friend” to whom the song is addressed is actually Widmer himself, wrestling with the the loss of hope he and so many others felt during those early days of the Covid shutdown.

Now the world is back. Widmer is back. With a song he’s hoping will answer itself with lots of love from his fans.

If you, too, are a local musician interested in performing live on WNHH FM, click on the ​“E‑mail the Author” button at the top of this story to learn more.

Previous ​“Acoustic Thursday @ Studio 51” performance:

• MJ Bones
• Johnathan Moore