Mimi Le Duck

So I’m iced in on Christmas Day and Marie calls from New Orleans: Eartha Kitt passed away.

And the emails began flooding in from people telling me how Eartha's ethereal rendition of the song “Everything Changes” had moved them.

Our lives overlapped briefly during the production of Mimi LeDuck in the fall of 2006. The show ran for 58 performances, and generally got lousy reviews -- except for Eartha’s performance, which was extraordinary.

Everywhere today, eloquent voices are raised, toasting to memories, and praising her talent, pluck, and humanity. I would like to add a story.

I wrote the song “Everything Changes” for LeDuck after looking in the mirror one morning and for the first time, realizing that my time was, indeed, marching on. Eartha took my words, inhabited them, gave them life, and made them her own. And when they poured out of the depths of her soul, they turned them into the bittersweet cry that all of us who are aging feel, but cannot express.

She took my words and gave them back to me, a song.


My birthday fell during rehearsal. Over the birthday cake, we were conspirators in aging, and when she sang “Everything Changes” that day, it was a gift to me, and for that, I thank her.


The original cast album after the show closed. Despite numerous requests, I never released it. I don’t really know why, Perhaps it’s ghosts, perhaps I’ll figure it out, perhaps I’ll write about what really happened one of these days.

But meanwhile, it is clear to me that thousands of her fans want to hear this song. The partial clips on YouTube have over 60,000 hits. It would be downright mean if I stubbornly refused to release it.

So I’ll get it up on iTunes and other download stores as soon as possible (keep checking) and will have a limited number of CD’s duplicated.

Email me at dianahansenyoung@gmail.com if you want to be notified when it’s available.

Aloha, Eartha.

Rest In Peace.