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Musically Speaking: A Life Through Song
"Music, I have come to realize, is for me a kind of golden thread running through my life. It has helped maintain my connection with the past that otherwise might have been severed by catastrophe and time. I am often asked—indeed, I often wonder myself—why it is that I should always have had such joie de vivre in the face of the losses and dislocations I had to endure in my early years. The answer I always gave was that the warmth and security of my early childhood had a remarkable power and influence. This is certainly true. But now I have realized that there is another part to the answer. And that is music."—from the introduction
Who among us does not have a song that triggers vivid memories—of jubilation, of belonging, of sorrow, of love? In Musically Speaking , Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, one of America's most beloved personalities, has written a warm and contemplative book about the role music has played in her life and the ineradicable traces it has left on her thoughts, emotions, her very being.
In this memoir through song, Dr. Ruth invites us to share her story from a uniquely musical perspective. By the time she was thirty, Ruth Westheimer had lived in five countries, each with a distinctive musical culture, each with a different hold on her sensibility. For the first ten years of her life, the comforting melodies of childhood helped drown out the anthems of Nazism to be heard elsewhere in her native Germany; as an adolescent refugee in Switzerland, she came to be aware that, however loudly she sang the patriotic songs of the land that gave her shelter, she could never truly be at home there.
Present at the creation of the modern state of Israel, she sang and danced to the new music of a new nation; as a young woman eagerly absorbing all that Paris had to offer in the way of romance and worldliness in the early 1950s, the songs of Edith Piaf, Mouloudji, and Yves Montand were her tutors. An almost accidental emigration to America brought new challenges and new stability, as she became a wife, mother, and professional; tremendous and unforeseen celebrity came later, and with it the giddy opportunity to indulge her love of music as never before.
Always, the classical repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms has drawn Westheimer to a German culture that has belonged—and not belonged—to her throughout her life. And always, the music of the Jewish tradition has given her strength and comfort beyond words.
Affording a view of Dr. Ruth from a rare private vantage point, Musically Speaking offers wondrous testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. This is a book full of color, verve, humor, and wisdom, unfolding gracefully through the beloved music of the Jewish holidays, the lullabies of childhood, the songs that sustained an orphan and roused the courage of a young woman, the melodies that enable a widow grieving for her husband to recall, from deep within the years of love, companionship, and happiness.
Who among us does not have a song that triggers vivid memories—of jubilation, of belonging, of sorrow, of love? In Musically Speaking , Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer, one of America's most beloved personalities, has written a warm and contemplative book about the role music has played in her life and the ineradicable traces it has left on her thoughts, emotions, her very being.
In this memoir through song, Dr. Ruth invites us to share her story from a uniquely musical perspective. By the time she was thirty, Ruth Westheimer had lived in five countries, each with a distinctive musical culture, each with a different hold on her sensibility. For the first ten years of her life, the comforting melodies of childhood helped drown out the anthems of Nazism to be heard elsewhere in her native Germany; as an adolescent refugee in Switzerland, she came to be aware that, however loudly she sang the patriotic songs of the land that gave her shelter, she could never truly be at home there.
Present at the creation of the modern state of Israel, she sang and danced to the new music of a new nation; as a young woman eagerly absorbing all that Paris had to offer in the way of romance and worldliness in the early 1950s, the songs of Edith Piaf, Mouloudji, and Yves Montand were her tutors. An almost accidental emigration to America brought new challenges and new stability, as she became a wife, mother, and professional; tremendous and unforeseen celebrity came later, and with it the giddy opportunity to indulge her love of music as never before.
Always, the classical repertoire of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and Brahms has drawn Westheimer to a German culture that has belonged—and not belonged—to her throughout her life. And always, the music of the Jewish tradition has given her strength and comfort beyond words.
Affording a view of Dr. Ruth from a rare private vantage point, Musically Speaking offers wondrous testimony to the resilience of the human spirit. This is a book full of color, verve, humor, and wisdom, unfolding gracefully through the beloved music of the Jewish holidays, the lullabies of childhood, the songs that sustained an orphan and roused the courage of a young woman, the melodies that enable a widow grieving for her husband to recall, from deep within the years of love, companionship, and happiness.
152 pages, Hardcover
First published August 1, 2003
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About the author
Ruth Westheimer
69 books141 followersKarola Ruth Westheimer, better known as Dr. Ruth, was a German-American sex therapist, talk show host, author, professor, and Holocaust survivor.
Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish family. As the Nazis came to power, her parents sent the ten-year-old girl to a school in Switzerland for safety, remaining behind themselves because of her elderly grandmother. They were both subsequently sent to concentration camps by the Gestapo, where they were killed. After World War II ended, she immigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. Despite being only 4 feet 7 inches (1.39 m) tall and 17 years of age, she joined the Haganah, and was trained as a sniper, but never saw combat. On her 20th birthday, Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during a mortar fire attack on Jerusalem during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, and almost lost both of her feet. Moving to Paris, France two years later, she studied psychology at the Sorbonne. Immigrating to the United States in 1956, she worked as a maid to put herself through graduate school, earned an M.A. degree in sociology from The New School in 1959, and earned a doctorate at 42 years of age from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1970. Over the next decade, she taught at a number of universities, and had a private sex therapy practice.
Westheimer's media career began in 1980 with the radio call-in show Sexually Speaking, which continued until 1990. In 1983 it was the top-rated radio show in the area, in the country's largest radio market. She then launched a television show, The Dr. Ruth Show, which by 1985 attracted 2 million viewers a week. She became known for giving serious advice while being candid, but also warm, cheerful, funny, and respectful, and for her tag phrase: "Get some". In 1984 The New York Times noted that she had risen "from obscurity to almost instant stardom." She hosted several series on the Lifetime Channel and other cable television networks from 1984 to 1993. She became a household name and major cultural figure, appeared on several network TV shows, co-starred in a movie with Gérard Depardieu, appeared on the cover of People, sang on a Tom Chapin album, appeared in several commercials, and hosted Playboy videos. She is the author of 45 books on sex and sexuality.
The one-woman 2013 play Becoming Dr. Ruth, written by Mark St. Germain, is about her life, as is the 2019 documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth, directed by Ryan White. Westheimer had been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, and awarded the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Leo Baeck Medal, the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger Award, and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish family. As the Nazis came to power, her parents sent the ten-year-old girl to a school in Switzerland for safety, remaining behind themselves because of her elderly grandmother. They were both subsequently sent to concentration camps by the Gestapo, where they were killed. After World War II ended, she immigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. Despite being only 4 feet 7 inches (1.39 m) tall and 17 years of age, she joined the Haganah, and was trained as a sniper, but never saw combat. On her 20th birthday, Westheimer was seriously wounded in action by an exploding shell during a mortar fire attack on Jerusalem during the 1947–1949 Palestine war, and almost lost both of her feet. Moving to Paris, France two years later, she studied psychology at the Sorbonne. Immigrating to the United States in 1956, she worked as a maid to put herself through graduate school, earned an M.A. degree in sociology from The New School in 1959, and earned a doctorate at 42 years of age from Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1970. Over the next decade, she taught at a number of universities, and had a private sex therapy practice.
Westheimer's media career began in 1980 with the radio call-in show Sexually Speaking, which continued until 1990. In 1983 it was the top-rated radio show in the area, in the country's largest radio market. She then launched a television show, The Dr. Ruth Show, which by 1985 attracted 2 million viewers a week. She became known for giving serious advice while being candid, but also warm, cheerful, funny, and respectful, and for her tag phrase: "Get some". In 1984 The New York Times noted that she had risen "from obscurity to almost instant stardom." She hosted several series on the Lifetime Channel and other cable television networks from 1984 to 1993. She became a household name and major cultural figure, appeared on several network TV shows, co-starred in a movie with Gérard Depardieu, appeared on the cover of People, sang on a Tom Chapin album, appeared in several commercials, and hosted Playboy videos. She is the author of 45 books on sex and sexuality.
The one-woman 2013 play Becoming Dr. Ruth, written by Mark St. Germain, is about her life, as is the 2019 documentary, Ask Dr. Ruth, directed by Ryan White. Westheimer had been inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame, and awarded the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Leo Baeck Medal, the Planned Parenthood Margaret Sanger Award, and the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 23, 2017
I only thought that Dr. Ruth wrote about sex, but apparently I was wrong. "Musically Speaking" (the title is a pun of her show "Sexually Speaking") is a brief autobiography of Dr. Ruth's life framed through the lens of music.
I didn't know anything about her life going into this other than she was German Jew who talked about sex. But she's so much more than that. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, was injured by shrapnel during the Six Day War, lived in 5 countries and taught herself 5 languages, and that just scraping the surface. Dr. Ruth talks about the songs she in each new place she moved to and how they connected to what was going on in her life at the time.
This was an incredibly quick read. Would recommend.
I didn't know anything about her life going into this other than she was German Jew who talked about sex. But she's so much more than that. She wanted to be a kindergarten teacher, was injured by shrapnel during the Six Day War, lived in 5 countries and taught herself 5 languages, and that just scraping the surface. Dr. Ruth talks about the songs she in each new place she moved to and how they connected to what was going on in her life at the time.
This was an incredibly quick read. Would recommend.
Displaying 1 of 1 review